Republican fears grow as Democrats keep notching election victories ahead of midterms

The bluntest assessment of Republican failures during this week’s elections in Wisconsin came from one of their own.

“We got our butts kicked,” said US Republican Tom Tiffany, who is running for governor. He was referring to Democratic victories in campaigns for the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the mayor’s office in Waukesha, a conservative suburb outside of Milwaukee.

But some Republicans were also rattled by a Georgia special election, where their candidate to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress won by a much slimmer margin than the party enjoyed in the past.

Taken together, the swings from red to blue added more data points to an increasingly clear picture of Democratic momentum heading into the November midterms, when control of the US House, US Senate and state Governments around the country are up for grabs.

“In rural, urban, red, blue, Democrats have overperformed everywhere,” said Jared Leopold, a Democratic consultant whose clients include Keisha Lance Bottoms, a candidate for Georgia governor. “That is a significant canary in the coal mine about what November of ‘26 is going to look like.” Some Republicans insisted there was no need to panic, and their fundraising remains stronger than Democrats. Stephen Lawson, a Georgia strategist, said “The sky is not falling.”

But he also said his party is running behind where it has been in the past, and Republicans need to be “looking at these results carefully.” Special elections can be notoriously unreliable as political benchmarks, but Democrats have consistently demonstrated surprising strength. They flipped a Texas State Senate district. They won a Florida state House seat in a district that includes President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach. Then they gained ground on Tuesday in the race to replace Greene, who resigned from Congress in January after a falling out with Trump.

Clay Fuller, the Republican candidate, prevailed by 12 points. Two years ago, Greene won by 29 points and Trump carried the district by almost 37 points.  “That’s a red alarm for Republicans,” said Democratic strategist Meredith Brasher.

Fuller defeated Shawn Harris, who plans to challenge him again in November. Jackie Harling, the district’s Republican chairwoman, said she believed that Greene’s resignation energized Democrats while her party is suffering from “election fatigue.” “Marjorie Taylor Greene was like a freight train that you couldn’t stop, and when she pulled out, it gave Democrats hope and it gave them a shot at winning something they believed was unwinnable,” Harling said.

Georgia has key races this year, including an open contest for the governor’s office. Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, is trying to defend his seat as well.

There’s reason to think that simmering discontent could boomerang back on Republicans just two years after Trump harnessed voters’ anger with his comeback presidential campaign. In November, Democrats defeated two Republican incumbents in statewide races for seats on the Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities. Rising electricity rates have been a fault line in recent campaigns, especially as enormous data centers are built to power artificial intelligence.  But Georgia Democratic Party Chair Charlie Bailey is trying to maintain modest expectations. “We could cement ourselves, put ourselves, on the slightly bluer side of purple,”he said. “We’re not going to overnight turn into Colorado.”

Wisconsin holds statewide elections for supreme court seats, and liberals expanded their majority with a 20-point blowout victory on Tuesday. Democrats saw gains in red, blue and purple counties when compared to another judicial race last year, which was also won by the liberal candidate.