Some Thoughts On Last Night's Results
Democrats can have renewed optimism heading into elections later this year and the 2026 midterms.
It was a solid night for Democrats overall, and a worrying one for Republicans (and Elon Musk especially) last night. Susan Crawford went well beyond expectations in her clear victory in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race, and Democrats overperformed (although they still lost) in both Florida’s 1st and 6th districts.
It was a good night for vibes, but data was so-so
The vibes were fairly accurate, (I predicted all three outcomes with little data on Monday) but the data that we did have wasn’t necessarily super predictive in the end. In the Wisconsin race, Crawford beat our polls-based estimate by about 5%, doubling her margin-of-victory over Brad Schimel. Two of the six polls we had had Crawford winning by 8%, so maybe the average would have only been off by 2% (a very typical polling error) if we had a larger collection of surveys to look at. The actual result ended up being much more comparable to the 2023 WI Supreme Court race, where Janet Protasiewicz won by around 11%, than I would’ve guessed, as I anticipated a 4-6% win for Crawford.
In Florida, we did not have any public polling (that I was able to find), so the only real data we had were early/mail voting numbers and turnout figures, which the New York Times was nice enough to compile daily. The story was similar here, as Republicans did overperform the turnout figures, but still won by significantly smaller margins than they typically do in these two districts.
Takeaways
Let’s start with Wisconsin - if there’s anything the Democratic party should recognize from last night’s outcome, it’s that Elon Musk and President Trump really aren’t well-liked in the Badger state. Now you might be saying, “Henry, Trump just won Wisconsin in 2024!”. And you’re not wrong, but Wisconsin was Kamala’s best of the seven key swing states, and also shifted the least towards Donald Trump. Poor Democratic turnout, Joe Biden’s mistake, too little time for Harris to run an effective campaign, and unhappiness (justified or not) with the economy lost her the election. Wisconsin is still going to be place where reproductive rights and common sense, normal candidates will be compelling to the majority of voters. Now, there’s a non-zero chance this is one of the final straws for Trump in his… strange partnership that he has formed with Elon, and he kicks him to the curb in a matter of weeks. I think it’s safe to say that if Elon did have an impact here in Wisconsin, it was a negative one for Republicans.
Florida is perhaps more promising for Democrats in a different way: Although Florida isn’t a swing state (anymore, despite it appearing close in 2016 and 2020 polls) and most of it’s congressional districts aren’t key to the 2026 midterms (California and New York are the hot spots) the massive overperformance of both Democratic candidates last night is telling. If Democrats can replicate these 10-20% shifts in moderately competitive GOP seats, they have a very easy path to taking back the House majority. Now, part of this overperformance is the fact that Democrats are now the low-propensity voters who show up even when overall turnout is low, and presumably more Republicans show up next November, but even a little bit of that shift matters a lot.
Takeaways
So where do we go from here with elections? Let’s set aside 2026 for now, simply because I don’t want to even think that far ahead quite yet, (deep down I know it isn’t that far) and let’s look at 2025. Virginia and New Jersey will hold elections for governor on November 4th, with Virginia being the really interesting one to watch, as the current governor is Republican Glenn Youngkin, but VA has voted Democratic at the presidential level since 2008. I plan on posting a forecast this summer for those races. Both Arizona’s 7th (September 23rd) and Texas’ 18th district will hold special elections to replace representatives who died shortly into their current terms, so we’ll see if we have any polling/analysis on those when they are a bit closer. Virginia will also elect a new House of Delegates (state legislature) and Pennsylvania might have three Supreme Court seats on the ballot.
I plan on posting (as soon as I have time to sit down and make it) a page where you can see how our polling averages and forecasts performed in 2024, and maybe integrating that into a larger “how accurate we were” dashboard eventually, not unlike the one on HenryDRiley.com.
Other than that, I’m taking a break from elections for now, and am going to get the Big Eight softball/baseball models up and running, finish up March Madness, and maybe look at other projects we can post. Thanks for reading, and keep an eye on your inbox for more. If you’re not subscribed already, it’s free, and I encourage you to do so below.