Democrats Face Challenges Ahead Despite Special Election Excitement

Get ready for the big blue frenzy: Democrats and their media allies are gushing over the results of Tuesday’s special elections in Wisconsin and Florida.

They’re claiming this marks the beginning of a resurgence, a sign that the public is turning away from President Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

A party desperate for a lift finally got one, and they achieved it the old-fashioned way: By taking shots at the big bad orange man.

It makes for a compelling narrative.

But there’s a significant issue: It’s not accurate.

It is true that Republican candidates performed significantly worse than Trump in crucial races.

In Florida, GOP congressmen Jimmy Patronis and Randy Fine secured victories by 14 and 15 percentage points in districts that Trump had won by 37 and 30 points, respectively.

Brad Schimel, the Republican candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, similarly lagged behind Trump by double digits.

While Trump narrowly won the Badger State in 2024, Schimel lost by 10 points.

The flaw in the Democrats’ narrative is their deliberate misinterpretation of why these results transpired.

The Democratic coalition has undergone substantial changes during the Trump era.

The party once appealed to less-educated, politically disengaged voters, while Republicans attracted the elite.

That dynamic has now flipped: Democrats are more successful with highly educated voters who are actively engaged in politics — those who vote consistently.

Currently, the GOP coalition has shifted towards voters who typically participate only in general elections.

Lower voter turnout tends to favor Democrats relative to their presidential performance.

The wins in Florida illustrate this phenomenon.

The electorate composition for the two special elections was five to ten points less favorable to Republicans than it was last November.

Factoring this reality diminishes the extent of Democratic overperformance significantly.

It’s likely that Tuesday’s electorates leaned even more against the GOP when considering registered independents.

These independents might favor one party but are less politically engaged, often sitting out special elections.

If registered independents who lean Republican are less likely to vote in special elections, it explains a significant portion of the Democrats’ supposed success.

The electorate for Wisconsin’s April election has tended to favor the left.

Liberal regions, particularly ultra-progressive Madison (Dane County) and its suburbs, comprised a notably larger segment of the electorate in the April court election of 2023 than in the general elections of 2022 or 2024.

This pattern repeated itself on Tuesday: NBC’s Steve Kornacki noted that turnout as a share of the 2024 presidential vote was 11 points higher in Dane County compared to Wisconsin’s predominantly rural, pro-Trump areas.

This shift likely contributes significantly to Susan Crawford’s improved performance compared to Kamala Harris—an advantage that will likely diminish in the fall when less engaged, pro-Trump voters return to the polls.

A clear illustration of this trend can be found in 2022, when an August special election for New York’s 19th congressional district saw Democrat Pat Ryan narrowly defeat Republican Marc Molinaro with a low turnout of just 129,000 voters.

Molinaro later ran in a similar congressional district (the previous one had been redistricted) that November.

In that race, he emerged victorious, achieving much better results across the four counties shared by the two districts.

In Sullivan County, the Republican’s margin improved by 5 points due to a more than doubling of turnout.

In Delaware County, Molinaro’s margin increased from 17 to 24 points, and he won Greene County by a point higher than in August.

Even in Columbia County, a Democratic stronghold he initially lost by 15 points in summer, he narrowed the margin to just 10 points in the fall.

There’s every reason to believe this trend will continue in the current cycle.

Midterm elections are often not predicted by special election outcomes but rather by the approval ratings of the sitting president.

For instance, in 2022, Democrats captured 94% of the vote among those who approved of Joe Biden’s performance, and only 12% among those who did not.

These numbers would bode well for Republicans in a potential election today, given Trump’s 48% job approval in the RealClear Politics average (50% disapprove).

If these trends persist into November 2026 and the GOP performs as well as the Democrats did in 2022, Republicans could reach 51% of the House vote and likely maintain their slim majority.

That would represent a historic outcome, and Trump’s job approval ratings may further decline over the next year and a half.

However, the key metric we should focus on is presidential approval, not special election results.

Kool-Aid can be a refreshing beverage, especially on a hot summer’s day. But consuming it can be unwise for political analysts or party strategists.

Republicans need to resist the lure of the electoral pessimism the Democrats are trying to sell them and instead concentrate on fulfilling the promises that brought them to the White House.

Henry Olsen, a political analyst and commentator, is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.