Dem
47
GOP
53
This is something that will undoubtedly lift the spirits of Democratic politics-watchers. Earlier this year, state Sen. Ryan Aument (R) resigned his seat representing Pennsylvania's SD-36 so that he could go to work for Sen. David McCormick (R-PA). Undoubtedly, Aument has Washington ambitions, like a nice seat in the U.S. House representing one of the districts in Pennsyltucky. He presumably also thought the seat he was vacating would be safe, since the district is R+15, went for Trump by 15 points in 2024, and has been held by the Republican Party for more than four decades.
Not so much, as it turns out. Yesterday, more than 50,000 voters turned out for the special election. That's about a third of all the registered voters in SD-36, which is pretty low for a regular election, but is actually pretty high for a special election. And once the ballots were counted, Democrat James Malone came out on top, with a lead of about 500 votes (26,951 to 26,469) over Republican Josh Parsons.
In case you would like a little local flavor, here's what reader D.E. in Lancaster wrote in with last night:
I know it's a special local election and that the win is by less than 500 votes but the Democrats flipped the Lancaster seat for the Pennsylvania state Senate!
That's Lancaster County, which I often call Trump County, PA. It's the Pennsylvania county that hosted several Trump rallies—in fact, the first day I moved here, VP candidate Mike Pence was campaigning for the Orange Menace. Lancaster County is a part of a Congressional district that has voted Republican for well over 100 years—actually, you have to go back to the 1800's to find a U.S. Representative who was NOT a Republican. Our current "Representative," Lloyd Smucker (R), won reelection in 2024 by 20+ points. Donald Trump had a 15+ margin of victory in the same election—about the same margin for 2020, but lower than his 2016 margin of 19 points.
While the small city of Lancaster leans Democratic, the surrounding suburbs and exburbs are rural, religious and ruby red. There is not a day at my job where I don't see a MAGA hat, T-shirt or tattoo! What's really insane is that I didn't know about this election, which sadly means I didn't get to add my vote to the total. I didn't receive one bit of campaign literature in the mail or by e-mail, despite usually getting buried in both during any election. This is the first time in decades this seat has been won by a Democrat. While this win doesn't flip the Republican rule in the state Senate, it narrows the gap, which still makes it sweet.
And yes, I know special elections are wonky, but a 15-point swing certainly titillates my Spidey-Senses. And this is after just two months of chaos and incompetency.
Thanks, D.E.!
And that wasn't the only special election in the Keystone State yesterday. HD-35 was also open, due to the unexpected death of Matthew Gergely (D) on January 19 of this year. Whereas SD-36 is quite red, HD-35 is equally blue, with a PVI of D+15. So, it was not a surprise that Democrat Dan Goughnour triumphed. However, he trounced his Republican opponent by nearly 30 points, 63.4% to 35.0%. This means the Democrats hold a 1-seat majority in the lower chamber of the state legislature. In the upper chamber, it's now 27R, 23D/I.
At this point, we will echo D.E. in Lancaster with the standard disclaimer about special elections, and their generally wonky character. With that out of the way, the Democrats outperformed their fundamentals by nearly the same margin in both elections, about 14.5 points. The party in power in Washington tends to underperform in special elections, because their voters are complacent, while the other party's voters are usually unhappy and looking to fight back. However, it's not usually this much of an underperformance. So, it's not crazy to suspect that, just a couple of months in, we're already seeing the stirrings of an anti-Trump backlash, especially since the main theme of Malone's campaign was "Elon Musk: bad." Hell, there is an election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court next Tuesday. Keep your eyes on that one.
Needless to say, we (and all other politics-watchers) will be very interested in what happens in the special elections in Florida next week. It would be very big news if the Democrats flipped one of those seats (almost certainly FL-06, if it happens). However, it would still be pretty big news if the Democrats keep it close—say, losing by less than 5 points.
There were actually a couple of stories on that front yesterday. First, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) spoke to reporters, and said that he expects Republican Randy Fine to underperform in the FL-06 election. That might just be the words of a small, insecure man looking to take a shot at a rival (DeSantis hates Fine), but it could also be that the Governor has reason to suspect trouble, and is trying to manage expectations. In addition, the Republican money train has rushed to the rescue in Florida, as Elon Musk's super PAC is going to drop some money in both districts this week. Aren't we all glad that Citizens United was decided the way it was?
Both of these stories are potential signs that Republican insiders are at least a little nervous about next week's elections. The GOP will still very likely hold on to both seats, but at least it's now getting interesting. (Z)