The Mini-Midterms: Five Takeaways from Six Decades of House Special Elections
A Commentary By Kyle Kondik
Thursday, April 15, 2021
KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE There have been nearly 300 U.S. House special elections since the mid-1950s. These elections more often flipped against the party that holds the White House just like what often happens to the president’s party in midterm House elections but the president’s party has scored some noteworthy wins, too, which can cloud the predictive value of special elections.
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Six decades of special House election trends
Almost exactly 47 years ago April 16, 1974 Republicans suffered what would be the fourth of five U.S. House special election losses in the first half of that year. Bob Traxler (D), who would go on to serve two decades in the U.S. House, defeated James Sparling Jr. (R) in MI-8.
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House Democrats In Safe Seats Ask DCCC Donors For Help Fending Off Progressive Challenges
Reps. Jimmy Gomez (Calif.) and Veronica Escobar (Texas) made their pitch during a party-sponsored video call with donors.
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Reps. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.), left, and Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) used a video call with Democratic donors to ask for help against progressive primary challengers.
Two House Democrats in safe Democratic seats used a party-sponsored video call with donors on Wednesday to solicit help against progressive challengers, according to a Democrat present on the call.
The appeals from Reps. Jimmy Gomez of Los Angeles and Veronica Escobar of El Paso, Texas ― both members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus ― took place mere hours after the left-wing group Justice Democrats announced its support for a primary challenge against Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, a fellow progressive caucus member.
But those successes masked other failures down the ballot for the party.
Democrats lost seats in the House and lost Senate races in states where they thought they had a chance, including North Carolina and Montana. At least some officials blame those losses on the defund the police debate.
Republicans believe the defund the police narrative is a political gift they can use again to win over swing voters and to energize their own political base.
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“This is music to the Republican minority’s ears in Washington,” said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell. “That is more powerful for Republicans than any perfectly scripted message.”
If you tried to find out what recently happened in court ending the criminal case against former GOP Congressman Tom DeLay, almost all the results that come up are from conservative sites. The left-wing news media deliberately ignored the story of his total legal exoneration earlier this month. Contrast this with the multiple, lengthy front-page articles than ran for years gleefully covering the progression of the politically motivated attacks on him.
I saved an article taking up the top half of the front page of
The New York Times from 2006 – with a huge photo of DeLay high-fiving my cousin, a Congressional staffer – announcing that DeLay was being forced to leave Congress due to the indictment. In contrast, the