Republicans held two key Congressional seats in the April 1 special elections in Florida’s 1st and 6th congressional districts, with Jimmy Patronis and Randy Fine both winning relatively easily over their Democratic opponents, 56.9 percent to 42.3 percent and 56.7 percent to 42.7 percent respectively.
Both were seats in districts President Donald Trump and the prior Congressmen, Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz, had carried by 30 points in 2024: 66 percent to 34 percent and 66.5 percent to 33.5 percent, respectively. So, Democrats overperformed by about 8 to 9 points in each district.
Elsewhere, in Wisconsin, Republicans won a statewide constitutional amendment making Wisconsin the latest state to require voter identification to vote in elections, 62.8 percent to 37.2 percent.
Meanwhile, Democrat Susan Crawford defeated Republican Brad Schimel 55 percent to 45 percent.
In 2024, President Trump beat Kamala Harris Wisconsin 49.6 percent to 48.7 percent, while Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin narrowly held her seat over Eric Hovde, 49.3 percent to 48.5 percent. So, for the 2025 Supreme Court election, Democrats overperformed by about 5 to 6 points.
Naturally, Democrats are portraying the results a clear verdict while liberal media outlets emphasize the underperformance by Republicans in both states. Are Republicans suddenly unpopular?
Not exactly. In fact, these are the type of results to expect after Republicans just won the White House, House and Senate, and Democrats are in opposition, trying to regain power. This type of additional incentive boosts turnout for the opposition party, in special elections and in midterm elections, with the next one due in November 2026.
For example, in Wisconsin, in 2018, with Trump in the White House, Tammy Baldwin was also reelected, but that time it was 55.3 percent to 44.5 percent over Leah Vukmir — very similar to the result that Susan Crawford received on April 1.
And in Florida’s 6th congressional district, in 2018, Mike Waltz, now Trump’s National Security Advisor, was initially elected to the Ron DeSantis seat over Nancy Soderberg 56.3 percent to 43.7 percent — very similar to the result Randy Fine received on April 1.
In other words, the April 1 special elections are very much what midterm elections look like for the White House incumbent party, in this case Republicans, who will try to defend the House and Senate.
In midterm elections dating back to 1906 through 2022, the party that occupied the White House lost seats in the House 27 out of 30 times, or 90 percent of the time, and in years with losses those averaged 34 seats.
These trends will also impact state races in New Jersey and Virginia later this year, particularly for governor seats in both states.
But for midterms, these trends in the past century, particularly in House races, have only been overcome in 1934, 1998 and 2002, with the Great Depression, Monica Lewinsky and the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks acting as exigent events. It’s not impossible, but it is highly unlikely.
Those are the exceptions. The general rule favoring the opposition in midterms is all James Madison’s constitutional scheme of periodic elections, which is explicitly designed to frustrate and to temper the ability of majorities to get things done.
Generally, the same trends will be in reverse when the White House incumbent party in its first term attempts to defend the Presidency, as Republicans will be doing in 2028, about two-thirds of the time. Then, the incumbency advantage kicks in again, this time favoring the House and Senate incumbents seeking reelection with the president or his successor on the ballot.
It’s not fool proof — Joe Biden and Kamala Harris fumbled the incumbency advantage in 2024 thanks to high inflation and open borders — but it’s still a factor that will generally favor Republicans in 2028.
For now, the current trends favor Democrats in the 2026 midterms, with Republicans as the White House incumbent seeking to find ways to maximize turnout to hold onto as many seats as possible.
Regardless, for each party, both will make use of early voting, the idea of which is to get as many high propensity base votes off the list so resources can be further focused on those who haven’t voted yet. But to get above normal turnout means the parties also need to get lower propensity voters to show up, which is usually easier when a party is in opposition. For the next year and a half, Republicans will be attempting to offset Democratic enthusiasm and as April 1 showed — it will not be easy.
Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
