Special Elections: Tuesday brought us the final legislative special elections of the year, and the indefatigable Johnny Longtorso, who has covered every special all year long, of course has a recap of the results:
Florida HD-58: Republicans held this seat easily, with Lawrence McClure defeating Democrat Jose Vazquez Figueroa by a 54-34 margin. Independent Ahmad Hussam Saadaldin came in third with 9 percent, while Libertarian Bryan Zemina pulled in 3 percent.
Tennessee SD-17: Republicans held onto this seat in a surprisingly close race. Mark Pody defeated Democrat Mary Alice Carfi by only 51-49, a huge swing from the seat's 72-24 margin for Donald Trump last year.
The Florida outcome was sucky for Democrats, considering Trump won the district by a much smaller 53-43 margin, but the Democrat was a perennial candidate who'd lost here several times before, while the independent was a Green Party member who says he voted for Jill Stein last year.
However, the result in Tennessee is absolutely stunning. In fact, that 46-point shift represents the second-largest swing from the 2016 presidential results for a special election in the Trump era, behind only a similarly shocking race for the Oklahoma House back in May that moved 48 points.
We've been arguing all year that outcomes like these—races where Democrats make big gains even if they fall short—are an important portent of things to come, which is why we've been tracking them so closely. Overall, there have been six congressional and 64 legislative special elections since Trump was elected that have featured one Democrat versus one Republican on the ballot. (This count excludes nonpartisan races and multi-way contests, since they aren't directly comparable to prior presidential elections.) On average, Democrats have outperformed Hillary Clinton by a 10 points and Barack Obama by 7 points.
That's truly extraordinary, because Democratic turnout in special elections has always lagged far behind presidential performance. Indeed, one analysis from 2013 showed that Democratic candidates who ran that year did about 12 points worse than Obama had just a year earlier. We now have more than enough data to say that this trend is no fluke, and last month's regularly scheduled elections in Virginia, where Democrats exceeded all expectations, prove the point.
Republicans can dismiss these facts if they like, and it's certainly possible that the political environment will shift in their favor next year. But for a long time now, all available evidence has pointed to a very rough midterm for the GOP, and the pile just keeps growing.