Let's Do This: Encouraging Results for Democrats in Virginia Special Elections

There will be more where these came from

Photo by Demure Storyteller on Unsplash

The first significant elections of 2025 took place on Tuesday. There were three special elections for the Virginia state legislature, including House district 26 and Senate districts 10 and 32. In all three races, the Democratic candidate outperformed Vice President Harris' margin from only two months ago. In one of the three districts, the over-performance was quite significant.

Here is a comparison of the Harris-Trump results from last November with Democratic-Republican results in the special elections this Tuesday. To produce this image, I used data from the Virginia Department of Elections (click here for results of the January 7 elections) and the non partisan Virginia Public Access Project (click here for Harris-Trump margins in these three districts from November 2024).

Now, I admit that in the two blue districts where the Democratic candidate prevailed, House district 26 and Senate district 32, we did not see a shift toward Democrats as large as I was hoping for. The average pro-Democratic shift in those two districts, only 0.7%, would not have been enough to swing either the 2024 presidential election or the 2024 House election to Democrats. In order to win the House of Representatives last November, Democrats needed a uniform national swing of 1.1%. To win the 2024 presidential election, we needed swings of 1.5% to win the national popular vote and 1.7% to win the Electoral College.

However, the shift toward Democrats in Senate district 10, an eye popping 8.5%, is something to write home about. With a shift like that, Harris would have won a national landslide, Democrats would have a large majority in the U.S. House, and would even have retained control of the U.S. Senate.

If you were to average the shift across the three districts, 3.3%, then Harris would have comfortably won the White House by picking up Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Also, Democrats would have easily won the House of Representatives, and thus have prevented any attempt by Trump to overturn the election. Republicans would still control the Senate, but by a margin of 52-48 without the tiebreaker, instead of 53-47 plus the tiebreaker. Bob Casey would have won reelection in Pennsylvania, but Sherrod Brown would have still lost narrowly in Ohio.

Overall, these are encouraging results. They are not the hard, sharp shift toward Democrats that we saw in the early special elections of 2017—at least not yet—but they are still pretty good. These three elections add a first data point to back up my belief that Democrats are well positioned to win the House in 2026. Perhaps more importantly, these results show that our electoral democracy is still functioning. People are voting without intimidation. There are no indications of widespread voting irregularities. Losing candidates are conceding and moving on.

We can build on these positive results in the more consequential special elections for the two vacant House seats in Florida's 1st and 6th congressional districts. Those two special elections will take place on April 1. In November 2024, the Democratic candidates in these districts received 34.0% and 33.5% of the vote respectively.

These special elections should occur before Republicans are able to pass a budget reconciliation bill extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts. This is important, because if Democratic nominees in the upcoming special elections can put up much better numbers—say, 40% or more—it will solidify the narrative that the 2026 House elections are looking good for Democrats. This will put the squeeze on the 14 House Republicans who won by 5% or less in 2024, making it difficult for them to vote for anything unpopular, such as tax cuts for the wealthy.

Thus, strong Democratic performances in the two Florida special elections could imperil the Republican push to extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts. That push is already on shaky ground, given the narrow 219-215 Republican House majority and the fact that two sitting House Republicans, Darrell Issa and Christopher Smith, voted against these tax cuts the first time around. There are also some right-wing Republicans who might not vote for the reconciliation bill if it includes an increase in the debt ceiling.

If you would like to help Democrats perform well in the upcoming Florida special elections, the best thing you can do right now is to make a contribution to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). The DCCC is the national party committee tasked with helping Democratic House candidates in swing districts and special elections. They can help provide the Democratic nominees in these districts with the staff, advertising budgets and voter turnout operations they need to run competitive campaigns.

Also, every step of the way, at Bowers News Media and Wolves and Sheep, we will continue to provide news explainers on the 2025 special elections, the 2026 midterms, the fight against the Trump/Republican legislative agenda, and ways for you to take impactful actions on all three.

Please, split a contribution of $10 between the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Bowers News Media PAC. Help us in our twin fights against the Trump legislative agenda and to retake the House of Representatives for Democrats in 2026.