Democrats win two more special elections in Republican districts
Democrats won two special elections on Tuesday, one in New Hampshire and one in Oklahoma, both of them in districts where Republicans have traditionally dominated. Although it’s gotten virtually no national media exposure, this is part of an ongoing trend across the nation in recent months in which Democrats have consistently won special elections that should have gone safely Republican. This trend is worth paying attention to, and reveals that the Democratic Party is an entirely different place than the mainstream media has been insisting.
The first victory on Tuesday night came when Democrat Charlie St. Clair defeated Republican Steve Whalley in a special election for a New Hampshire House seat (link). This same district had gone solidly Republican in the 2016 election. The second victory on Tuesday came when Democrat Jacob Rosecrants won the special election in Oklahoma (link). Notably, Rosecrants won in a twenty point blowout even though this district had also gone solidly Republican in 2016.
Here’s what stands out: thus far in special elections in 2017, the Democrats have won every special election they were supposed to win, as well as numerous special elections that were supposed to lean Republican. Meanwhile the Republicans haven’t won a single special election this year for a seat their party didn’t already hold. This trend demonstrates that the historically low and sinking popularly of Donald Trump is causing a nationwide trend in which Democrats are consistently outperforming traditional expectations.
However, based on four high profile special elections which saw Republicans barely winning in overwhelmingly Republican districts, including the Georgia 6th, the national media has painted the Democratic Party as being in trouble. What the media omitted was that the Democrats massively outperformed in all of those special elections, for instance gaining seventeen points in the Georgia 6th. In fact when the Democrats won the special election for U.S. House of Representatives in the California 34th in a blowout, the national media gave it no coverage at all. Contribute to Palmer Report
