Democrats are overperforming former Vice President Kamala Harris‘ 2024 margin in special elections across the United States.

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin told Newsweek the party is “committed to building infrastructure and power across the country and that starts with these critical November elections.”

Newsweek also reached out to the Republican National Committee for comment via email.

Why It Matters

Democrats are hoping to retake control of the House of Representatives and Senate in the 2026 midterm elections and are increasingly optimistic about the chances of a 2018-style “blue wave” fueled by President Donald Trump‘s diminishing approval rating.

Special election results, some of which have seen Democrats overperform Harris by 50 points or more, are fueling this optimism. Although special elections are not necessarily predictive of how the midterms will go, Democrats see these results as showing a highly motivated base amid Trump’s second term in office.

What to Know

Tuesday night delivered Democrats their latest overperformance in Virginia’s 11th Congressional District. Democrat James Walkinshaw won the special election to replace the late Congressman Gerry Connolly by roughly a 50 point margin in the Fairfax County-based district.

The district has long been safely Democratic as Northern Virginia’s D.C. suburbs shifted leftward. But Walkinshaw’s performance marks a larger margin than Harris carried the district by last November. She won it by only 34 points—roughly the same margin by which Connolly won reelection.

This is part of a broader trend of Democrats winning by stronger margins than Harris last November across the country.

Democrats’ strongest overperformance comes from New York’s 22nd Senate district, where Democrat Sam Sutton won by 35 points in a May special election. Trump carried the seat by 55 points in November, making for a 90 point overperformance. The district is located in South Brooklyn and includes Orthodox Jewish communities. While Trump has performed well there, it has been more open to Democrats down ballot.

In an August special election for Rhode Island’s 34th Senate District, based around North Providence, Democrat Stefano Famiglietti won by a 67-point margin—compared to Harris’ 11-point margin last November.

Meanwhile, Democrat Amanda Clinton pulled off a similarly strong win in an Oklahoma special election in June. She carried her Tulsa-based district by 69 points, compared to Harris’ 19-point victory.

Democrats have overperformed in 34 special elections, while Republicans have overperformed in five special elections in Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. There have been four additional non-partisan special elections in Louisiana and Mississippi.

What People Are Saying

Martin told Newsweek: “As the fall election season starts, the DNC is all hands on deck to win the crucial Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and California ballot measure elections in November. Democrats have overperformed or won in 41 out of 42 key elections so far this year, including last month having our third double digit overperformance in Iowa this year after deploying our distributed organizing program. That is the core of our mission. The DNC is committed to building infrastructure and power across the country and that starts with these critical November elections.”

Split Ticket analyst Lakshya Jain wrote to X in March: “Main implication of all of this special election hullaballoo is that Republicans are starting to realize like Obama 2008, many of their new voters just don’t care about non-presidential elections — and that generally makes for ugly midterms on turnout alone.”

What Happens Next

Two major elections held this year are viewed as key bellwethers for the midterms—those are the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races. Democrats are leading polls in both of those races, but Republicans are still optimistic about their chances, particularly in New Jersey.