While 2025 was ostensibly an off-year for elections, it proved to be filled with fascinating and important contests, marked by one unmistakable trend: Democratic candidates consistently overperformed, racking up several special election victories that left Republicans feeling anxious about their electoral prospects.
The question hanging overhead was whether the trend would continue in 2026. That answer is already coming into focus.
Last week, Democrats won lopsided victories in two special elections in Minnesota, restoring the state House to an even partisan split. The Democratic candidates, running in Democratic strongholds, prevailed by margins of 95% and 91%, respectively. The results didn’t generate a lot of attention, however, for good reasons: One of the candidates ran unopposed, and the other faced token opposition. Though turnout was rather strong, the races weren’t a credible test of the prevailing political winds.
There was far greater interest, however, in a state Senate special election in the suburbs of Fort Worth, Texas. A New York Times report noted last week that Republican officials worried “that even a narrow G.O.P. victory … could be a bad sign for their midterm prospects.”
The results were far from a narrow GOP victory. MS NOW reported:
Democrats flipped a seat in the Texas Senate on Saturday when Democrat Taylor Rehmet won 57% of the vote in a special election for state Senate District 9.
Rehmet, a union leader and an Air Force veteran, won the seat for the Fort Worth-area district against Republican candidate Leigh Wambsganss.
On paper, this outcome seemed wholly implausible. Donald Trump won this district by 17 points in the 2024 elections; Wambsganss heavily outspent Rehmet; the district hasn’t been competitive in three decades; and state GOP leaders, such as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, went all out to help carry Wambsganss across the finish line in one of the nation’s largest Republican counties.
The Democratic candidate won by double digits anyway.
G. Elliott Morris, the former director of data analytics at FiveThirtyEight, noted, “This swing of 32 points from Trump’s 2024 performance is the largest Democratic overperformance in a competitive special election since Trump took office.”
The outcome was obviously a difficult one for Wambsganss, the chief communications officer for Patriot Mobile, which describes itself as “America’s ONLY Christian conservative wireless provider.” But the results were also especially brutal for Donald Trump — though he was eager to pretend otherwise.
During a brief Q-and-A with the press at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday, a reporter asked the president for his reaction to the Democratic victory in the Texas race.
“I don’t know. I didn’t hear about it,” he replied. “Somebody ran where?” Reminded of the relevant details, Trump added, “I’m not involved with that. That’s a local Texas race.”
Literally one day earlier, the president published the latest in a series of messages to his social media platform that read, “Today is the day! To all Voters in Texas’ 9th State Senate District: GET OUT AND VOTE for a phenomenal Candidate, Leigh Wambsganss. She is a highly successful Entrepreneur, and an incredible supporter of our Movement to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. You can win this Election for Leigh, who has my Complete and Total Endorsement. POLLS CLOSE AT 7 P.M. GET OUT AND VOTE FOR LEIGH WAMBSGANSS! … Leigh will NEVER let Texas, or the USA, down!”
The day before that, he also reminded local voters that he considered Wambsganss “a GREAT Candidate” who enjoyed his “Complete and Total Endorsement.”
On Saturday night, Wambsganss lost by 14 points. On midday Sunday, Trump said of the race, “Somebody ran where?” adding, “I’m not involved with that.”
He was most definitely involved with that.
Republican incumbents and candidates counting on the president’s support to make a difference should probably keep this in mind through the coming months.
