In another year, Analilia Mejia’s 20-point victory in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District would be a surprise result.
But the fight of the organizers that continues on Thursday caused a small shock, despite the difference in the district of the former Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris was carrying only 8 points.
It was the latest in a long line of Democratic overruns in elections since President Donald Trump took office last year, and nowhere near the biggest.
A POLITICO analysis of 229 state and federal elections since Trump’s inauguration shows Democratic candidates beat Harris in 193 of them. On average, Democratic candidates beat Harris by 5 points. In a few special elections, they have pulled more than 20 points to the left.
It’s a warning sign for Republicans that has been flashing across the country every few weeks. Outperformance in special elections has been an indicator of midterm swings in the past, and the trend over the past 15 months is particularly strong. In the two years of special elections leading up to 2018, the number of votes shifted to the left in about two-thirds of special elections.according to The Downballot. In November of that year, the Democrats gained 40 seats.
This cycle, Democrats have flipped the rest of the race in close to 85 percent of the special elections.
“Overperformance across the country in special election after special election is a trend that cannot be ignored and proof that the American people are frustrated with the broken promises of Republicans,” Democratic National Campaign Committee spokesman Aidan Johnson said in a statement.
Of course, double-digit swings in some special elections don’t mean that every seat Trump won by 10 points will carry over into November. And part of the big numbers comes from comparing the candidates to Harris, who did worse in 2024 than Democrats who polled less in the same polls. For example, in New Jersey’s 11th District, then-Rep. Mike Sherrill won by just 15 points while Harris won by 8. Mejia, in the special election, won by 20.
“Defeating the most unpopular Democratic presidential nominee in history is an understatement, and hailing it as an achievement is shameful,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Bernadette Breslin.
And turnout in special elections is generally much lower than in midterm or presidential elections. National Republicans argue that the midterms will be different when turnout is high.
“Democrats are cherry-picking special elections to spin a narrative that will fall apart once you look at the full picture,” Republican National Congressional Committee spokesman Mike Marinella said in a statement. “Republicans have the money, the message, and the momentum heading into 2026, and we’re outnumbering the Democrats where it will count in the battleground that will decide the majority.”
But the Democrats’ improvements compared to 2024 extend to communities and districts that are very different from each other, including special elections for House and state seats, as well as regular gubernatorial and congressional elections in Virginia and New Jersey last year. The Democrats’ steady progress has met red and blue districts, swing and safe states — and it’s a sign toward the center that the political landscape has changed since 2024.
Morgan Bonwell, an Iowa-based Republican strategist, said Trump’s victory spurred Democratic voters to turn out.
“That fired up the Democrats. They lost a lot,” he said. “They had an opportunity right there again to come out and show up.”
The statistics show that the Democrats’ improvement is not just a product of partisan voters in blue areas: Many were in districts where Trump beat Harris. The biggest gains were in Trump’s won Brooklyn state Senate district where the Democratic candidate improved on Harris’ vote share by 45 percent, followed by Rhode Island and Oklahoma’s state congressional races by 28 and 27 points, respectively.
The biggest gain for Republicans was in February’s special election for the state congressional seat in Alabama, where the GOP candidate won by 13 points over Trump.
Democratic strategist Fred Hicks said he was encouraged by voters reengaging with the party after a lackluster 2024 that saw former President Joe Biden drop out of the presidential race and Harris’ shortened campaign fail to prevent Trump’s re-election.
“Trump’s decisions and his announcements made Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters immediately cautious, so people realized they didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on their emotions,” Hicks said.
Another encouraging sign for Democrats is that some state legislative elections have overlapped with congressional battlegrounds. Three special state legislative elections in Iowa, for example, were held within the boundaries of the state’s 1st and 3rd Districts — key Democratic targets held by GOP Representatives. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn. In each of those special elections, the Democratic candidate beat the Harris 2024 standard by between 12 and 13 percent.
Bonwell, an Iowa-based Republican strategist, warned that Miller-Meeks, Nunn and the rest of the GOP slate in Iowa will need to coordinate closely to match the Democratic turnout in November, especially with strong candidates like.Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sandwho says he “has the ability to manipulate the crowd.”
“They need to be in front of unity, and they need to pool resources, in my opinion, to raise them all,” he said. “I think it’s going to be tough for sure.”
Other special elections have been held in some of the biggest Senate battlegrounds. Since last year, there have been six special elections for state legislatures in Georgia, and all have been swung between 2 and 10 points toward the Democrats. The special congressional election for the seat of former Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene saw the Democrat sweep Harris in the district by 13 points. The other two special elections were in Maine – one won by 6 points for the Democrats, and the other led by less than one point for the GOP.
The Democrats’ outperformance comes despite the lowest preference for the party since 2025. North Carolina-based Democratic strategist Doug Wilson said that focused on kitchen-table issues — the “affordability” playbook manual used by successful Democratic campaigns over the past year.
“I know that the brand of the party is still not where it was, but at the same time, I think the Democrats have done a good job of getting back to what I call the Democratic roots,” Wilson said. “Remembering what it was like to be that man or woman who lies awake at night worrying about how they’re going to feed their family, how they’re going to put gas in the car, how they’re going to save for retirement.”
There are still some unknowns that could shape the midterm environment. In the 2022 election cycle, Democrats struggled in special elections untilDobbsThe decision brought abortion rights to the fore, thencontinued the winning streakculminating in a midterm that had mixed results for both parties.
But for now, the situation has Democrats raising their hopes for November. Democratic strategist Alex Kellner said they may be riding a wave of victories reminiscent of the Republicans’ landslide victory in the 2010 midterms.
“The level is higher for Democrats than it’s been in a long time for the big picture,” Kellner said.
About the analysis
The analysis includes all federal and state elections since Trump took office where there was one Democrat and one Republican. The data came from several sources:
Ballotpedia: List of special elections and election results
Reorganizing the Data Hub, New York Times: Results of the presidency at the regional level and geographical boundaries
Voting Game: Presidential results are organized by parliamentary districts
State Navigate: Presidential results are organized by state districts
State electoral offices: Total votes by district or districts, where available
US Census Bureau: Geographical boundaries for state legislative districts
POLITICO developed an artificial intelligence tool to collect data, standardize and analyze the results. Journalists checked the results for each state to ensure accuracy.
Total votes represent the share of votes cast for Democrats and Republicans, not counting candidates of other parties. Presidential results for some states are based on state reports; for others, it is an estimate based on a local report. Some of the presidential results are race estimates where individual seats are divided along district lines.
The change represents a change in the Democratic share of the two-party vote, not a quantitative change. For example, a candidate who won 70 percent of the vote in a district where Harris won 60 percent is said to be a 10-point swing.
