Alan Zendell, April 1, 2025

In yesterday’s three special elections, we saw the predictions James Carville made a few weeks ago begin to bear fruit. Carville expected support for Trump’s policies among Republicans and Independents to rapidly tank, and that that would throw fear into the hearts of those in contested districts in next year’s midterms.

In Florida, Republicans won the two House seats vacated by Matt Gaetz and Michael Waltz, but those two districts were bright red to start with. Republicans vastly outnumber Democrats on the voter registration rolls in both, and Trump won them by 37% and 33%, respectively, last November.

Republicans won, yesterday, but the results reflected more voter disaffection with the Trump administration’s first ten weeks than support for them. In both Florida races, the Democratic candidate raised far more money than the Republican, and the Republican margins of victory were less than half of Trump’s, last November. In Florida’s 1^st district, Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s former Chief Financial Officer should have breezed to victory in his Pensacola-based district, but his margin of victory was only 15%. That means 22%  percent fewer people voted for Patronis than Trump.

In Florida’s 6^th district, Randy Fine, who was running to replace Waltz, Trump’s National Security Advisor, should also have breezed to victory if voters supported what Trump and Waltz have been doing. But when polls showed Fine in a tight race, only a massive, last-minute get-out-the-vote effort by Republicans allowed him to win by 14%, which was 19% less than Trump won by in November. What these two results tell us is pretty clear. Trump’s MAGA base stuck with him in these House races, but Independents and people who voted more against Harris and the Democrats than for Trump last year did not.

That does not bode well for Republicans in contested districts. Those Republicans generally won by smaller margins than Trump, last year, in an election Democrats lost more than Trump won. We’ve seen, ever since Trump crashed the Republican Party, that the first priority of the Republicans who hold those seats is being re-elected. They’ve been cowed into supporting Trump’s agenda by threats that Elon Musk will spend whatever it takes to primary them if they’re not sufficiently loyal. But they know that Trump’s base, while large, is not sufficient to carry elections by themselves. If they see voters angry and distressed by Trump’s words and actions, they won’t continue to support him.

In Wisconsin, where a seat on the State Supreme Court was on the ballot, a potentially far more important race was won by Democrats, despite the election being technically nonpartisan. This election should terrify MAGA Republicans. Wisconsin has been described as the most purple state in the country, yet, its House delegation contains five Republicans and two Democrats – a three seat edge for Speaker Mike Johnson. The reason for this is gerrymandering. Under former Governor Scott Walker, who presided over a Republican majority in the legislature, Wisconsin’s voting district map became one of the most egregiously biased in the country. With that gerrymandered map in place, Democrats received 61% of the vote, but won only 49% of the seats in the following statewide election. That map is also responsible for the 5-2 Republican majority in Wisconsin’s House seats.

Wisconsin’s gerrymandered districts have been challenged in the courts, and the case reached the Supreme Court, which has been extremely reluctant to overturn state legislatures’ maps. But Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion, which upheld the gerrymandered map, also reflected its unfairness, but it was impossible to accurately quantify. He suggested a better way to present the case.

That’s why yesterday’s victory by Judge Susan Crawford is so important. With Crawford on the State Supreme Court, a re-submitted challenge to the district map will receive a far more favorable response. In her victory speech, she promised to put fairness ahead of other considerations when she is on the bench. If Wisconsin’s voting districts more fairly represent the state’s population, the Democrats will gain at least one seat in the U. S House, and probably two. That should give Trump and Johnson sleepless nights as they see time running out to pass Trump’s radical agenda.

This is what Carville foresaw in his New York Times Op-Ed. In Carville’s view, voter dissatisfaction with Trump’s agenda among federal workers and veterans is likely to throw Virginia’s gubernatorial election next November to Democrats. That would surely stop Trump’s blitzkrieg attack on the Constitution in its tracks. Since Virginia’s present governor, Glenn Youngkind, is all in for Trump that should ice things for Republicans running in swing districts..

Another thing Crawford said last night may be even more telling. She said she never expected to be running against the world’s richest man. She proved that money can’t buy elections when voters can clearly see the country moving in a dangerous direction.