The special election tidbit will get updated occasionally. The updates are not getting anything better. Two open Democratic Connecticut House seats were flipped at the end of February — seats vacated so the incumbents could work for the new Governor. Not encouraging.
Previous special election results were not encouraging either. A Minnesota state Senate seat was flipped from Democrat to Republican when the Senator left to work for the Governor. Two Republicans were finalists for a Texas House seat. This was a Republican seat, but the two Republicans were ahead of the Democrats by a margin that was 20 points higher than the 2016 presidential election margin. There was a Virginia open Democratic House seat victory. The Democrat won with 60% of the vote, matching Barack Obama’s percent in 2012. The result was 5 points lower than Hillary Clinton’s margin in 2016 and 9 points lower than the elected Delegate’s margin in 2017.
We could make excuses. The Minnesota seat was in a heavily Republican area – the one Republican Congressional seat that Republicans flipped convincingly. Democratic political leadership in Virginia is in disarray – the Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General embroiled in scandals. Connecticut is not beset by scandals, but the new Democratic Governor appears to have made a mess of the conversation about taxes.
Those aren’t excuses for special education losses. They are signs of trouble.