For the first time this year, Democrats snagged a Republican seat in a special election last night. Two seats, in fact.
They weren’t necessarily the most consequential races, but Republicans would be very wrong to overlook what’s going on in these early local races. They could be a sign of trouble ahead.
On Long Island, Christine Pellegrino, a delegate for Bernie Sanders at last year’s Democratic convention, won the vacant ninth district state assembly seat. The seat had long been Republican, and opened up only because the incumbent was appointed to a local government position. President Trump had carried the district by 23 points.
In a remote part of New Hampshire, Democrat Edith DesMarais picked up a Republican seat in Wolfeboro. The GOP incumbent had been appointed to a position in Gov. Chris Sununu’s administration. Although New Hampshire’s state House is enormous, with teeny tiny districts, and even though another Republican retained a seat in Manchester on the same night, apparently no Democrat has ever represented Wolfeboro.
Perhaps neither of these seems too significant. Very few people voted (neither candidate in the New Hampshire race even got 1,000 votes), and the flip of a seat in the New York state assembly (already Democrat-dominated) or New Hampshire state house (the largest state legislative body in America) won’t change legislation or policy in either state.
But if these are early signs that voters are getting fed up, Republicans might have a lot of losing ahead of them — so much that they’ll get tired of it. They’d do well to pay attention and run scared.
