Another Tuesday night, another round of special elections, another pickup for Democrats—lucky number seven of the cycle. (Republicans have yet to flip a contested Democratic seat since Trump’s election.)
Democrat Annette Taddeo, a former candidate for Congress and lieutenant governor, won a special election to the Florida state Senate 51-47 percent, becoming the first Democrat to win this district this decade. While this seat went 58-40 for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and backed Barack Obama 54-45 in 2012, it’s had a long tradition of backing Republicans further down-ballot. Marco Rubio, for instance, won it 50-47 last year, so Taddeo’s victory overcomes a lot of history.
Senate District 40 became open in April when freshman Republican Sen. Frank Artiles resigned after dropping a racist rant in front of two black lawmakers. Taddeo faced ex-GOP state Rep. Jose Felix Diaz and independent Christian “He-Man” Schlaerth (yep, that’s how he appeared on the ballot). The election was complicated by the fact that Hurricane Irma hit this district particularly hard, and several areas are still working to recover.
In fact, one of the areas still struggling with major power outages is SD-40's Richmond Heights, a heavily black neighborhood. In light of the post-hurricane chaos, Democrats and voting rights groups called on Republican Gov. Rick Scott to delay the special elections for two weeks, but he refused.
Fortunately, that didn’t stop Taddeo from winning. What’s more, her victory narrows the Democrats’ deficit in the state Senate to 16 seats versus 24 for the GOP. Not only is that the Democrats’ largest number of seats in 17 years, it brings the party one step closer to retaking the chamber before the 2020 census, which would prevent Republicans from gerrymandering congressional and legislative districts yet again.
And there’s a bigger picture as well. This flip follows Democratic pickups in New Hampshire and Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago, and two earlier flips in Oklahoma in July. The pickup trend began in May, when Democrats flipped another state House seat in New Hampshire and a state Assembly seat in New York.
This means that Democrats have now won seats from the GOP seven times in just 26 chances—fully 27 percent of all special elections in Republican-held seats in the Trump era. That’s a terrifying statistic for the GOP. Republicans can’t afford to continue struggling like this if they hope to hold on to majorities in state legislatures and the U.S. House this cycle.
So let’s keep the trend going: Please donate $1 to each of these Daily Kos-endorsed candidates running for the Virginia state House in November so that we can pick up even more Republican seats!