Democrats win special election in Iowa district that had gone strongly Republican just nine months ago

| 11:38 pm EDT August 8, 2017
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Pundits and observers on all sides have been trying to use special elections over the past few months to try to get a feel for which party has the momentum heading into the 2018 midterms. Tonight the Democratic Party handily won a special election in an Iowa district that had gone strongly for Donald Trump and the Republicans in November, further pointing to the Democrats having the momentum – even as some special election results have been widely misunderstood.

Tonight’s results in the Iowa House race saw Democrat Phil Miller winning by a more than two-to-one margin, with the results having been posted by Libby Meyer of The Hawk Eye, Iowa’s oldest newspaper (link). But Trump won this same district handily in 2016. So as Trump has collapsed while in office, tonight’s result further points to Democratic momentum. Still, some will ask why the Republicans have won some of the most highly publicized special elections this year.

That answer is rather straightforward. The highest profile special elections have been the U.S. Congress races in Georgia and Kansas and Montana. The were each the direct result of Donald Trump plucking people for his administration from what his team thought were the safest of strongly Republican districts. In other words, these special election were set up to be automatic blowout wins. And yet in each instance, the Republicans barely won. These were, in effect, victories for the Democrats – and not just of the moral kind. These races proved that the Democrats were capable of finishing as much twenty points higher than usual in any given district.

So it’s not surprising that the Democrats have won every special election around the country this year held in districts which were remotely “winnable” for a Democrat. That includes Iowa tonight, Delaware before that, and too many other special elections to list. Yet none of them have received any national news coverage – even as the Democrats continue to clean up.