U.S. elections

Democrats should worry about all their close special election losses

Democrats have plenty of reasons to be optimistic in the 2018 midterms: President Trump is unpopular, they hold a strong lead in indicators like the generic congressional ballot, and they have pulled off shocking upsets in special elections over the past two years in places like Alabama and rural Pennsylvania.

But there is a dark side to those promising omens: Democrats have also fallen short in several special elections that were teed up as the kind of race they would need to win to take back the House majority. In the Georgia Sixth to replace Tom Price and the Ohio 12th to replace Pat Tiberi in particular, Democrats outperformed the district’s partisan lean and its Republican voting history but still couldn’t find quite enough votes to win.

For every Pennsylvania 18th, the site of Conor Lamb’s stunning win in a district Donald Trump had won by 18 points, there is an Arizona Eighth. Democrat Hiral Tipirneni came within 3 points of beating Republican Debbie Lesko in a district Trump won by 23.

So Democrats came much closer than you’d think to winning a coveted House seat. But they still lost. They’ve actually lost a lot over the past two years, including in the Ohio 12th special election last month. Of course, Republicans haven’t really been impressive either, as they scrape by in what were supposed to be solid GOP districts.