Republicans are a little spooked after losing a Texas Senate seat in District 9 in a special election that President Donald Trump had carried in 2024 by more than 17 points, 58 percent to Kamala Harris’ 40.6 percent, with Democrat Taylor Rehmet defeating Republican Leigh Wambsganss 57.2 percent to 42.8 percent the second-round runoff on Jan. 31.
That’s quite a drop off of support for the Republicans amid the curious nature of Texas’ special election system which runs akin to a jungle primary where multiple candidates from each party can run in the special election, and if no one gets above 50 percent, it goes to a runoff. Why not just do a primary prior to the Election Day?
Special elections are already a much lower turnout affair, and special election runoffs are even worse — and rare. But when they happen, they can deliver surprises.
In this case, it’s a lot like comparing the television ratings for the Super Bowl versus a regular season game versus a preseason game versus a practice.
As a result, Republicans went from getting 52 percent of the vote in the first round — a 6-point drop-off from 2024’s 58 percent — on Nov. 4, 2025 down to 42.8 percent in the second round, another 9-point drop-off. In other words, if the GOP had just settled on a single candidate in the first place, they would have very likely retained the seat by 5 points in November.
That’s interesting and somewhat anomalous but they happen often enough where you worry about them, as special elections are potentially perilous for the President’s party in a Congressional midterm cycle — especially if the incumbent party is not united. Just ask Roy Moore.
What to make out of it? If you want to win, stay united.
Fortunately for Republicans prone to in-fighting, for the most part, there will not be multiple rounds of voting for the Congressional midterm general election. But there are certain exceptions: In 2026, the possibility of runoffs arise in statewide races for Senate in Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana if nobody gets above 50 percent.
This has come into play in the past, for example, with the 2020 runoff in Georgia that got Democratic Sen. Jon Ossof elected over David Perdue and that elected Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock over Kelly Loeffler, the only reason Democrats won the Senate for Joe Biden’s first term who otherwise might have been a lame duck.
If it appears that Republicans haven’t done very well in runoffs, it is important to recognize that many of the aforementioned results occurred in cycles 2017, 2020, 2021, 2025 and 2026 that the opposition party had all won. Politics has seasons, too, akin to summer and winter for each party. Recognizing where you are and in which cycle you are is therefore critical to incumbent parties hoping to retain majorities.
As an aside, since Republicans run the states that tend to use runoffs, it’s a wonder they haven’t already changed their states’ laws to do away with them. Same with ranked-choice voting schemes. These gimmicks simply water down Republican votes in states that are usually quite red in scenarios where the GOP is running the country with smaller majorities than Democrats are usually able to garner.
Runoffs are nowhere to be found for House races, in the meantime.
In the Texas Senate District 9, then, as interesting as the special election runoff was, the drop off in the first round for Republicans from 2024 may still be the thing to look at as a more accurate sampling of public sentiment in the district — and nationwide — in the general election amid boosted Democratic turnout in the Congressional midterm cycle favoring the out-party, from 58 percent to 52 percent. That was a 6-point drop.
Similar shrinkage occurred in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District special election on Dec. 2, 2025 that saw Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Van Epps prevail over Democrat Aftyn Behn, 53.9 percent to 45 percent after former U.S. Rep. Mark Green had carried the seat with 59.5 percent of the vote in 2024, a 5.6 percent drop off from 2024 to 2025.
As measured, each round of voting, from a presidential election to an off-year general election to a special election to a special election runoff, tends to water down support of the incumbent party. It makes it possible to win seats that are usually out of reach.
They’re flukes but it was a special election that’s expected. In 2017, nationally there were five special elections in seats Republicans held: Kansas’ 4th Congressional District, Montana’s At-Large Congressional District, Geogia’s 6th Congressional District, South Carolina’s 5th Congressional District and Utah’s 3rd Congressional District. There were drop-offs of 8.5 points, 6.25 points, 9.9 points, 8.16 points and 15.5 points, respectively, from the presidential election year performance in those same districts.
That made Van Epps’ showing — and Republicans’ first round showing in Texas Senate District 9 for that matter — better than comparable special elections the last time a Republican was in the White House in the midterm cycle. The second drop-off from the special election in November to the runoff in January was what nuked the seat.
Still, the result in Texas will likely be a wakeup call for Republicans. There will be primaries, for example between Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton and then after they are done, if one side is embittered and stays home, it could be very damaging in the general election. Midterm cycles are hard enough — and Texas Senate District 9 shows that anything can happen. Unite, or lose. Take nothing for granted.
Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
