How Democrats are faring in first tests of the Trump backlash
President Donald Trump’s election has sparked an enormous groundswell of activism from rank-and-file voters angry about his policies.
Political analysts have wondered whether Democrats can turn this wave of progressive enthusiasm into concrete electoral gains in the 2018 midterms. One way to test that: special elections to fill empty state legislature and congressional seats.
Special elections, which typically motivate much lower turnout than ordinary races, are an important indicator of partisan enthusiasm. That’s why a Delaware state senate race in late February got so much national attention.
As of April 10, there have been 15 special elections for state house and senate seats since Nov. 9, 2016. Between now and November 2017, there will be special elections for 32 more state legislature seats, five U.S. House seats and one U.S. Senate seat. Some Democratic candidates in U.S. House races are generating excitement, including the Bernie Sanders-backing banjo player Rob Quist in Montana and 30-year-old documentary filmmaker Jon Ossoff in Georgia..................................................It's not all good news for Democrats, however. In Connecticut’s 2nd Senate District, for example, Republicans decreased their loss margin by some 20 percentage points.
But Democrats see promising signs in other areas. In Iowa’s 45th Senate District, where Clinton defeated Trump by about 16 percentage points, Democrat Jim Lykam defeated Mike Gonzales, the GOP candidate, by an almost 50 percentage-point margin in a December special election. And in Minnesota’s House of Representatives District 32B, where Clinton lost to Trump by 29 percentage points, Democrat Laurie Warner lost to Republican Anne Neu by just 6 percentage points.
Check out each of the special election results in greater detail below.
http://data.huffingtonpost.com/2017/special-elections
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