Three Signals that I Very Much Like

A special election, a bad internal GOP poll and the yanking of a nomination tell us things are not going very well for Trump and the GOP.

Rep. (and not U.N. Ambassador) Elise Stefanik. Kent Nishimura / Getty Images

I promised myself I wouldn’t work on my birthday, but I just had to share some good news, which often feels in short supply and today feels like a gift of sorts.

I want to cover three developments that I believe are quite positive signs for the growing movement against Trump and the GOP. They reveal significant shifts in voter sentiment, both in actual votes and in polling. Before I jump in, however, I want to talk about why this matters.

After taking office, Trump launched campaigns against migrants, his political opponents, universities, our neighbors to the north and south, our allies and our own federal government. To justify this massive shift in policy, he claimed a mandate that he did not have. After all, he won the popular vote only by a small amount, the crucial Northern swing states by a narrow margin, and failed to garner even a majority of the actual presidential votes. Many voters don’t understand that his claims of a mandate are false. But they would be laid bare if voters began to reject the GOP at the ballot box in an undeniable way.

That brings us to today’s discussion about the three signals: One in a deep red rural Pennsylvania, another in Florida in National Security Advisor Mike Waltz’s former congressional district, and a third involving an upstate New York Congressmember whose nomination to the administration just got yanked.

Dems just won in a deep red PA county

If you’re a GOP House member in a swing district and are worried that Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s radical, sledgehammer policies are infuriating voters and losing your party’s support, the results from Tuesday night might cause you to gulp hard:

Democratic candidate James Andrew Malone bested the GOP candidate narrowly in a state senate race for PA-36. This is a flip for the Dems in a county that went +15 for Trump in 2024.

So, why does this matter? That district has always been a solid GOP one. It covers Lancaster County but does not actually include the city of Lancaster, which is more Democratic. This is to say, the district flipped to the Dems after voters in the suburbs, exurbs and small towns, showed up to vote for Malone. As the New York Times wrote,

The election, conducted in the small towns and suburbs of Lancaster County where no Democrat had won since the district was redrawn decades ago, joined two currents that are powering the political moment. It underscored the galvanizing fury among Democratic voters, who have flocked to rallies and crowded town hall meetings in the early weeks of Mr. Trump’s second term. And it was further evidence of the changes in the two parties’ electorates, with Democrats drawing more and more of the kind of highly educated voters who reliably turn out for special elections.

This 16 point move toward the Dems wasn’t a fluke. In a state house district race that was also held in PA on Tuesday for HD-35, the Democrat, who was expected to win, overperformed the 2024 results by 13 points. That win returned the Democrats to the state house majority in Pennsylvania, breaking the 101-101 tie.

These are huge shifts. Special elections, of course, normally turn out the most motivated members of each party, and Democrats in Pennsylvania are fired up.

Speaking of special elections…

This coming Tuesday, there are three key tests for the parties in special elections. There’s the state supreme court race in Wisconsin I have written about extensively (and thank you for helping raise a quarter million dollars for Judge Susan Crawford!); the U.S. House race in Florida to replace disgraced former Congressman and accused human trafficker and rapist Matt Gaetz; and the U.S. House race in Florida to replace Rep. Mike Waltz, who is now part of Trump’s cabinet.

It’s this last one I want to take a closer look at.

By all accounts, this shouldn’t even be a contest. Waltz won FL-6 in 2024 in deep red Florida by 33 points. Trump carried it in 2024 by 30. This should have been a walk in the park for Republicans, and it was probably why Trump had no worries in plucking Waltz out of Congress. His successor would certainly be a Republican.

Frankly, that assumption is probably still correct, but the race is now closer than anyone in the GOP wants it to be. Republican candidate Randy Fine has run a poor campaign and has been outspent 10-1 by his opponent, Josh Weil, a local teacher who has aggressively messaged against the Trump White House and Elon Musk’s DOGE in particular.

Granted, 30+ points is a big hill to climb, but if Weil moves the needle by a big factor, such as the 13-16 points we just saw in Pennsylvania, the story will be that there is a blue wave headed toward the GOP House in 2026 that will swamp most vulnerable swing district Republicans.

Then there’s the chance that Weil actually pulls off an upset. Again, this would be highly unlikely, but internal polling by the GOP shows it’s possible. Here’s a result from Trump’s own favorite pollster, Tony Fabrizio:

I happen to think this number is akin to the infamous Iowa poll that had Harris leading and is skewed by Democrats very eager to respond. Early voting shows a +10 Republican advantage, likely to grow on Election Day next Tuesday, so I am betting Fine still wins but not by 30. Perhaps not even close to 30.

The important thing about the Fabrizio Ward poll is that Trump and the Republicans saw it. After all, they commissioned it. And they really didn’t like its bottom line numbers, even if those are likely way off. Let’s say they’re off by 15 points, like the Iowa poll. That still has Fine underperforming in the high teens—a terrible sign of things to come for Republicans in 2026 if the fury against the White House and DOGE continues to grow.

It’s quite possible that the PA result and the FL poll motivated Trump to do the third thing I want to talk about.

Not Für Elise

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is out. That is to say, she is not going to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and instead is being sent back to the House, at Trump’s request, because the Republicans need her vote there.

Trump dropped the news last night in a Truth Social post, where he praised Stefanik but said openly that with a very tight House majority, “I don’t want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat.”

That implies two things.

First, it’s an acknowledgment that the White House believes Republicans could actually lose a race to replace her in NY-21, which voted for Trump by 21 points in 2024. No date for that election had yet been set, but if the number crunchers don’t like the GOP’s chances in that very red district, they don’t like them anywhere.

Second, it’s an admission that the GOP agenda in the House is very much in danger. Their majority there is currently just a few seats, and sending Stefanik back could keep it just high enough, they believe, to pass massive tax cuts for the rich while slashing Medicaid by $880 billion and devastating food assistance programs. This means they are expecting resistance from both the deficit hawks and the swing district “moderates,” and that could sink the Trump tax cut boat before it even leaves GOP harbors.

The very ambitious Stefanik, who transformed from an anti-Trump Republican in 2016 to a full-blown MAGA sycophant today, is no doubt sorely disappointed. It’s not even clear she will get back her old position in House leadership, as someone else has that job now, so if she wants a seat back at the leadership table, Speaker Johnson may have to make a position up for her.

Zooming out, the yanking of Stefanik reveals that Trump is now actually playing defense and is deeply concerned about what voter rage could do to his agenda, especially as his own favorabilities dip into negative territory.

Tuesday’s special elections will tell us a great deal more about how badly his agenda and personal brand have been hit by his own aggressive, cruel and damaging policies.

Okay, back to not working on my birthday!