Heading into last week’s state legislative special election in Pennsylvania, Republicans had reason to be optimistic. The race was in a Pittsburgh-area district that Donald Trump won by 18 points in 2024, and it’s been a GOP stronghold for decades.
The Democratic candidate flipped the seat from red to blue anyway. WTAE in Pittsburgh reported:
Brandon Dukes, a Democrat, won the special election for Pennsylvania House District 12, defeating Republican Scott Timko by fewer than 100 votes to claim a seat held by Republicans since the late 1990s.
“What we did was very big last night and very insightful for other candidates who are running in the state. So, we’re hoping it can carry along with our momentum,” Dukes said. He added, “Very excited to get to Harrisburg and get to work and bring good things back to the district from Harrisburg.”
The Associated Press projected Dukes as the winner, and the GOP candidate has conceded. That said, the two candidates will face off again in the fall for the right to serve a full term in the state House.
But in the meantime, as the small Democratic majority in Pennsylvania’s state House gets just a little bigger, the trouble for the Republican Party isn’t just that its candidate lost in a deeply red district; it’s also the fact that this has happened quite often since the president’s second term began.
Earlier this year in Texas, for example, Republicans invested a considerable amount of resources to keep a state Senate seat in the suburbs of Fort Worth. They failed, as Democrat Taylor Rehmet, a union leader and Air Force veteran, won a double-digit victory in a district Trump won by 17 points in 2024. (The president personally tried to rally support for the GOP candidate, but then pretended he didn’t after she lost badly.)
In early March, a Democratic state legislative candidate flipped a seat in Arkansas. A week later, a Democratic state legislative candidate flipped a seat in New Hampshire, in an outcome that the New Hampshire Union Leader called “stunning” and a “big upset” given the Republican advantage in the district.
The same month, Democrats flipped two state legislative seats in Florida — including in the district that houses Mar-a-Lago.
All told, Democrats have now flipped 31 seats from red to blue since January 2025, though Dukes’ victory in Pennsylvania was arguably the most impressive, since Trump’s margin of victory was larger in that district than in any of the other contests.
Some will no doubt argue that it’s best not to read too much into state legislative special elections, especially those held in the middle of August, months before November’s races. It’s a fair point. But what matters is how the results fit into the broader political landscape. Republicans are tied to an unpopular president, key elements of the GOP agenda are facing an intensifying public backlash, polls show a growing appetite for sweeping changes from the status quo and they keep losing special elections, including in contests they expected to win.
If party insiders aren’t concerned about their standing ahead of this year’s midterm elections, they’re not paying close enough attention.
In a Fox News interview in March, House Speaker Mike Johnson was asked about the special elections and whether he sees them as “a canary in the coal mine” ahead of the midterms.
“These special elections are a one-off,” the Louisiana Republican replied. “They’re anomalies.”
To be sure, that might make GOP leaders feel better. Some of them might even believe it. But when the same thing keeps happening, it becomes a lot tougher to see them as one-off anomalies.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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