Democrats went down to Georgia (and Alabama and Virginia and Connecticut and Delaware and Iowa and Pennsylvania and...)

And take it from this Fiddler, they’re looking for elections to win.

…sorry.

Oh hey there was a special election in Georgia last night.

No, I don’t mean the 6^th congressional district. I mean the 32^nd state Senate district.

Fun fact! Most of GA SD32 falls within GA06.

• The race was crowded, with three Democrats and five Republicans in the running. And it’s a ridiculously Republican seat. Georgia GOP lawmakers gerrymandered the heck out of it.
• But Democrat Christine Triebsch came in first, with 24% of the vote. She’ll face Republican Kay Kirkpatrick in a special election on May 16 (Georgia separates their state and federal runoffs).

But wait, there’s more!

• A special election for Alabama House District 67 was also held last night. Democrat Prince Chestnut won that contest against an Independent opponent with 94.9% of the vote.

 So, just to recap the special election results since Trump’s election in November:

• Of the 15 contested state legislative elections held over the past five months, Democrats have won nine of them (not counting GA SD32 here, since, while the Democrat won the most votes, it’s going to a runoff). 
• Of the six state legislative contests Democrats lost, they outperformed Hillary’s numbers in four of them.

So if once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and three times is enemy action…

Whether we’re talking Democratic wins or Democratic overperformances, Republicans have plenty to be scared of.

And I know I talk about Virginia¸ like, all the time, but there was an election in the Commonwealth last night, too!

…for Circuit Court Clerk in Prince William County.

Why all the hubbub? Two reasons: 

1. Democrat Jacqueline Smith defeated Republican Jackson Miller fairly handily (53.9% to 46%), despite the fact that he’d outraised her 6-to-1. Prince William County, a historically Republican but increasingly swing-y DC outer suburb, is home to several key state House pickup targets for Democrats this fall.

Which brings us to point

2. Jackson Miller is currently the Virginia House of Delegates Republican Whip, 4^th in the GOP hierarchy, and happens to represent a district Hillary won with 54.2% of the vote. But instead of joining several of his Republican colleagues in similar situations and retiring, he decided to hedge his bets by filing to both run for reelection to the House and for Clerk of Court.

Oops.

Miller’s performance last night bodes ill for his fate in November… and for the fate of other Republicans representing Prince William County.

(This is the part where I remind you that Virginia Democrats are having their best state House recruitment year in memory – on top of the retirement of multiple Republicans in swing districts, Dems are running candidates in 83 of the House of Delegates’ 100 districts (so far – Democrats still have almost two months to file to run in the remaining seats!).

In sum,

• Democratic performance in special elections since November has been strong, 
• GOP victories in elections since November have been feeble, 
• Democratic candidate recruitment has been going incredibly well, and 
• DLCC's own grassroots fundraising is breaking records.

State legislative Democrats are leading the way for the Democratic Party's success this cycle.