Democrats have been celebrating a bigger than expected victory in statewide voting box contests, with a well-known and historically expensive election on Wisconsin’s battlefields, since President Donald Trump returned to power in January.
And while GOP appeared at other marquee contests on Tuesday, comfortably controlling two vacant Congress seats in Florida’s Red State Twin Special Election, Democrats have spotlighted candidates flooding with Republican districts.
Democrats portray last week’s contest as an early referendum on Trump’s sweeping and controversial moves in the opening game of his second White House job tour.
And Democrats argue that results in Wisconsin and Florida are indications of what’s coming in next year’s midterm elections.
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Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate Susan Crawford will make waves during election night party after winning the election in Madison, Wisconsin (AP Photo/Kayla Wolf) on Tuesday, April 1, 2025 (AP Photo/Kayla Wolf)
“These races proved that we’ve seen them many times this year. People are already tired of Trump’s chaotic agenda and they’re voting for change,” Democrat National Committee Chairman Ken Martin stressed in an email to supporters.
But pointing to Florida’s victory, Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Wayley retorted, “The American people sent a clear message… They want elected officials to advance President Trump’s first American agenda, and their votes cannot be purchased by National Democrats.”
Liberal candidates win the first major statewide election of the year
In Wisconsin, liberal Judge Susan Crawford managed to outperform conservative-leaning judge Brad Simel by about 10 percentage points, maintaining a liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The contest was partially transformed into a mandate between Trump and Musk, as democratic parallels from outside Wisconsin and a massive infusion of money from Republicans transformed technically nonpartisan races into the most expensive judicial elections in the country’s history.
Elon Musk will speak at City Hall on Sunday, March 30, 2025 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has been buzzing about the federal workforce when piloting Trump’s recently created Office of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and has paid about $20 million in Wisconsin races through the Allard Group supporting Simel.
And in a controversial move, Musk signed two Wisconsin voters who have already voted in the contest by handing out a $1 million check at a meeting in Green Bay last Sunday, signing a petition to stop the “activist judge.”
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“We could not have imagined taking on the wealthiest man in the world for justice in Wisconsin. And we won.”
The results in Wisconsin will likely shock Democrats and examine their efforts to target Musk.
Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader, a top Democrat at the Chamber of Commerce, argued that Wisconsin voters “sent a definitive message to Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Doge by rejecting extreme Republicans for the Supreme Court.”
And looking forward to next year’s bigger contest in the 2026 midterm elections, the DNC was called the Wisconsin showdown and “Bellweather Race.”
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But veteran Republican strategist Matt Gorman said two years ago when the Conservatives lost their majority in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the liberal candidate scored 11 points.
Pointing to the 10-point margin of this week when Trump is in the White House, Gorman asked, “What is this the Democrats are up and down?”
In Florida, a double-digit victory by the Republican candidate will give the GOP a bit of a breathing room for the House. There, they hold a very vulnerable majority as the party aims to pass the Trump agenda.
Republican Randy Fine, Centre, won a special election on April 1, 2025 to fill the vacancy left by Mike Waltz’s resignation, which became Trump’s national security adviser. (AP Photo/Perrand M. Evenhack)
But the Democratic candidates in two special Congressional elections far outweighed Republican counterparts (signs that the party’s bases were angry and energized). And the Democratic candidate lost 15 and 14 points in the district where Trump scored 37 and 30 points in the presidential election last November.
Republicans hold control of two vacant Congress seats in this red state
Democrats quickly lit the spotlight on how the party “overperformed” in Florida. And House Majority PAC is a House Democrat supporting top super PACs, touting the results “showing that political headwinds are firmly present on our backs towards 2026.”
President Donald Trump, billionaire and special White House adviser Elon Musk, sat in an interview about Fox News “Honity” held on Tuesday, February 18th, 2025 (Fox News)
But Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, argued that “Democrats were only lit over $20,000,000 in their fateful efforts to compete in two deep red Florida districts, and were blown out of the water in the most surprising way.”
Trump is taking part in his second mission tour at the White House for 10 weeks with the Americans
Elections in Wisconsin and Florida took place on the eve of Trump’s blockbuster tariff announcement, sparking a trade war with the country’s top trading partners, leading to massive sales in financial markets. The latest move by the president could also set the stage for an even bigger voting box backlash next year.
President Donald Trump keeps the charts when making mutual tariff comments at an event titled “Making America Richer” at the White House in Washington, DC on April 2, 2025. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP) (Photo by Getty Images/AFP) (Getty Images)
But Democrats now have serious brand issues.
In separate national surveys conducted last month by CNN and NBC News, the party’s favorable ratings sank to an all-time low. These figures followed the Democrats’ record low in a Kinnipiac University survey in the field in February.
Additionally, the latest Fox News National Polly shows Congressional Democrats’ approval rate is 30%, close to an all-time low. And democratic activists are furious at the party’s ability to blunt Trump’s agenda.
And when the annual off- and special elections are usually low, administration parties, who are clearly Republicans in the country’s capital, often face political headwinds.
“We’ll stand up to fight another day, but this wasn’t our day,” Shimmel said in a concession speech.
Judge Brad Schemmel admitted his election defeat in Pewaukee, Wisconsin on April 1, 2025.
And Wisconsin GOP Chairman Brian Simming said, “The success of November was what made the April election a challenge.”
DNC Chairman Martin touts “Democrats have either won or over-performed in almost every special election race this year, including this week.”
However, Republicans note that Democrats enjoyed numerous special election victories in 2023 and 2024 before suffering a serious setback in the election last November.
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“Special elections are special for reasons and not useful because there are always some useful canaries in the mines ahead,” veteran Republican strategist Colin Reid told Fox News Digital. “It can be used as an energy barometer, but it also reflects the individual candidates whose names are included in the poll.”
Gorman then emphasized that special elections were “not predictive.”
Reid argued that “a major challenge for Democrats going forward is the lack of a vision or governance agenda beyond their reflective and inclusive opposition to the White House and its continued out-of-mainstream position on many commonsense issues.”
Paul Steinhauser is a political reporter based in New Hampshire.
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