Looking ahead
to 2024, Democrats concede some cause for concern -- including President Joe Biden's
anemic approval rating and early polls forecasting a repeat race against former President Donald Trump in which
Biden either ties or trails, due in part to a notable chunk of undecided voters and
apprehension over Biden's age and acuity, which he has repeatedly dismissed.
But Democrats also say that based on 2023 so far, they see plenty of reason for optimism about their chances with voters.
An analysis from FiveThirtyEight found that in 38 special elections held so far this year, Democrats have outperformed the partisan lean -- or the relative liberal or conservative history -- of the areas where the races were held by an average of 10%, both romping in parts of the country that typically support the party while cutting down on GOP margins in red cities and counties, too.
For instance, the Democratic candidate in a Wisconsin State Assembly special election last month lost by just 7 points in an area where Republicans have a 22-point edge and where Trump beat Biden by almost 17 points in 2020.
In a New Hampshire special election in May for a state House seat, the Democrat won by 43 points, far beyond the party's estimated 23-point edge in the district.
The data from FiveThirtyEight does not include regularly scheduled off-year elections, including the Wisconsin Supreme Court race earlier this year in which the liberal candidate, now-Justice Janet Protasiewicz, won by 11 points -- in a state famous for its wafer-thin election margins.
"I think when you when you look at things like this, one special election doesn't mean much on its own. But when you start to see real consistency, it can certainly become predictive of the next election cycle," said Ben Nuckels, a Wisconsin Democratic strategist who consulted on Protasiewicz's campaign.
For comparison, according to FiveThirtyEight, Democrats outperformed the weighted partisan lean by about 4% in special elections held between the 2018 midterms and the 2020 elections, when Biden won the White House by 4.5% but Democrats underperformed in House races.
Conversations with eight Democratic and Republican operatives in swing states show some repeated explanations for this success: the public's general support for abortion access after the Supreme Court reversed the national guarantee for the procedure last year along with angst and anger over Trump's comeback bid, given how divisive he remains -- two factors which might even overcompensate for Biden's sagging approval ratings.
"Republicans have not had a good election night since before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. And, honestly, it seems like post-Roe Republicans couldn't find their groove even if a DJ played their favorite song on repeat," Nuckels said. "So I think Democrats are in a very good position here going forward."
Special and off-year elections are not perfect predictors of major election cycles. Now-Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, earned a surprise victory in 2021 -- before Democrats' surprisingly strong performance in the 2022 midterms.
However, similar elections held in 2017 and 2019 did precede Democratic successes in 2018 and 2020.
"I think what we're seeing is that the Dobbs decision [on abortion] has fundamentally rewired our politics, and almost every other measure than actual votes cast has yet to figure out how to bake that in. And so, whether you're talking about traditional approval ratings, whether you're talking about polling, the ground has shifted," said Wisconsin Democratic strategist Joe Zepecki.
"Almost all of these elections keep ending up different than what you would have expected -- in the same direction. And so, that, to me, suggests that there's some stickiness to this," he added. "And the only thing that might change it is clarity on this issue, something like a federal codification of [abortion rights]. And you and I both know we're not going to see that between now and next November."
Republican operatives also sounded some alarm, telling ABC News the trend cannot be ignored.
"If you're looking at this plus-22 [pro-GOP] seat and you want to know why this guy won by a lot smaller percentage than what you would have thought ... it's because this issue is still there. Republicans still have to figure out how to address the abortion issue," said Wisconsin GOP strategist Brandon Scholz.
"I think you have to be very concerned."
Other Republicans pointed to the current lack of party unity over Trump -- amid the 2024 primary -- to help explain the special election results.
"You could probably make a connection a little bit to the presidential race, that there's a lot of candidates in right now. There's the Trump folks and folks that are backing somebody else, and the party's not united nationally around one candidate right now, or at least not completely. Sometimes that affects turnout and funding and stuff like that," said GOP consultant Josh Novotney, who is based in Pennsylvania, where Democrats
flipped the state House in special elections earlier this year.
Other conservatives cautioned against taking too much away from how the 2023 results could predict who wins next year.
