Today’s Morning Jolt covers the results in Texas’ special house election, the Pennsylvania state supreme court retention elections, the California redistricting referendum, the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races, and the New York City mayoral race. But if you’re a Republican, the bad news from last night just won’t stop.
In Georgia, “Democrats Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson have delivered an upset in off-year special election Tuesday, defeating two Republican incumbents on the state’s Public Service Commission. The double victory marks the first time the Democratic Party has won a statewide constitutional office in Georgia since 2006.” The Georgia Public Service Commission regulates rates for telecommunications, electric, and natural gas services.
In Mississippi, a federal three-judge panel ruled in July that the state legislative boundaries had violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting black representation. The court required the state to draw new state legislative boundaries, and yesterday voters went to the polls for special elections for six state Senate districts and one House district. Democrats picked up two seats in the Mississippi Senate and one seat in the Mississippi House; the Senate win broke the Republican supermajority, reducing the GOP seats to 34 in the 52-seat chamber.
You can scoff that few voters pay attention to state public service commission races or special state legislative elections, but that’s the point. Most years, Republicans win these races in these places fairly easily and no one pays much attention to them.
This undermines the “it’s only blue states remaining blue” argument you’re going to hear this morning. Lots of Democrats are very fired up, and lots of Republicans are just not that motivated, and perhaps not even aware that these special elections are occurring. This isn’t purely a problem of Donald Trump, but if the president’s job approval were well above 50 percent, and people felt good about the economy, would Republicans have let these under-the-radar races slip through their fingers? Is it all that helpful for the GOP’s messaging on economic issues when the president is gushing about his new White House ballroom, the redone bathroom in the Lincoln bedroom, and throwing an ostentatious Great Gatsby-themed party at Mar-a-Lago with burlesque dancers?