Republicans are sounding the alarm over a series of crushing losses in recent elections.
“While it is tempting for many in our party to wish away these results, the pattern is clear that there is at least a current 10-point Democratic over-performance from Trump 2024 — and it’s built on a fired-up Democratic base and a sleepy GOP base,” one unnamed GOP operative told Axios.
Democrats are outperforming former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 results by double digits in multiple state-level races, according to the report.
In 20 state legislative special elections this year, Democrats averaged 10.5 points ahead of Harris’ performance, while last year, in 67 state House and Senate races, they outpaced her by nearly 14 points, according to The Downballot.
That includes Democrat Taylor Rehmet’s 14-point victory in a North Texas state Senate seat Trump carried by 17 points in 2024, and Democrat Chasity Verret Martinez’s 24-point win in a Louisiana state House district President Trump had previously won by 13 points.
Even in safe GOP territory, Republicans are seeing smaller margins than Trump’s 2024 showing.
On Feb. 10, a Republican claimed victory in a conservative north-central Oklahoma state House seat by 28 points, far narrower than Trump’s 58-point margin there in 2024.
Overall, since the start of the year, GOP candidates have fallen short of Trump’s 2024 performance by double digits in state legislative contests across Northern and Central Virginia, New York City, east-central Minnesota, and southeastern Connecticut.
Some Republicans are panicking over what they see as their dozing base.
But others have shrugged off the losses.
“Let’s not pretend a couple of low-turnout special elections suddenly signal a political earthquake,” Mason Di Palma of the Republican State Leadership Committee told Axios. “They are unique, low-turnout contests driven by highly localized factors.”
Polls show Trump’s popularity slipping in recent weeks, amid backlash over the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies—including two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis by federal immigration agents—as well as dissatisfaction with the economy.
YouGov/Economist polling shows that since the beginning of his second term, Trump’s net approval on immigration has dropped from +11 points to -11 points, while his rating on the economy has dropped from +12 points to -23.
Meanwhile, polls have shown Trump losing support among key voter groups that propelled him into the White House in 2024, like young men, Hispanics, and non-college-educated Americans.
A trio of surveys released last week showed that Americans think Biden did a better job in the White House than Trump has so far.
As a result, two Republican strategists told Axios earlier this month that they believe the Republican majority in the Senate may be difficult to hold on to in the midterms in November.
“A year ago, I would have told you we were almost guaranteed to win the Senate,” one of the GOP operatives said. “Today, I would have to tell you it’s far less certain.”
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