Dem
47
GOP
53
The real fun, election-wise, is going to unfold in November of next year. But for politics junkies who need their fix before that, there are some meaningful elections in the much more immediate future. We did a rundown of the election calendar for the rest of 2025 yesterday; today it's the first several months of 2026.
Let's start with the special elections for the House. The 2026 election cycle will start with the runoff in TX-18, which is scheduled for January 31. Unfortunately, it is going to be a very boring start, because the runoff pits a Democrat, Christian Menefee, against another Democrat, Amanda Edwards. They are both Black, they are both fairly liberal, they have both held mid-level political offices. We cannot imagine any result here that would tell us anything, other than a majority-minority D+21 district tends to elect minority Democrats. When the winner is seated, it will fill a seat that has been open for nearly a year, as Rep. Sylvester Turner died on March 5 of this year. This is a travesty, and another anti-democratic black mark against Gov. Greg Abbott (who has plenty of those to his credit).
Next up will be NJ-11, which was vacated by Mikie Sherrill (D) when she was elected as the state's governor. On February 5, about a week after the good people of TX-18 find out who their new representative will be, Democrats in NJ-11 will get to select their nominee from among 13 candidates, some of them plausible, others the longest of long shots. It will probably end up being Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill, though with the vote being split 13 ways, you never know. That person will then go on to face the already-nominated Joe Hathaway, who is the mayor of Randolph (pop. 26,547). Apparently, Hathaway was the only Republican to throw his hat in the ring, which is a little strange, because the district is only D+5. That's not "easy" for a Republican, but it's not impossible. That said, with that kind of lean, and in the current climate, you have to assume the Democrat will win. If they win big, it will be more evidence that Donald Trump is creating strong headwinds for his party.
Eventually, the folks in GA-14 will have to pick a replacement for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). However, her resignation isn't official yet, and won't become so until January 5. As chance would have it, and this is undoubtedly just a coincidence, that is exactly 2 days after she qualifies for a lifetime pension and healthcare. By state law, Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) can't set the dates for the special election until Greene formally vacates her seat; assuming a reasonably normal timeline, a replacement will be seated sometime in May or June. Greene's district is very, very red, obviously (it's R+19), but this could turn into a TN-07 situation, wherein a much-closer-than-it-should-have-been win for a Republican ends up being a harbinger of trouble for the GOP.
Moving along, on March 3—after the first two vacant House seats are filled, but before the third is—there are primaries in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas. Texas is hugely important because if AG Ken Paxton (R), who is both corrupt and crazypants, is the GOP nominee for the Senate, he might actually lose the seat. North Carolina will be closely watched during the general election, but probably not too much during the primary. Roy Cooper is sure to claim the Democrats' nomination in a walk, while the Trump-anointed Michael Whatley, who is facing only one (pretty weak) opponent, will surely be the Republican nominee. The only possible development of interest would be if Whatley had to sweat a bit due to a close race. That would certainly be a bad sign for the general, since Cooper is many orders of magnitude stronger than the no-name Whatley is facing in the primary. Arkansas will have little of interest, since the four members of the House delegation, all of them Republicans, along with Sen. Tom Cotton, who is also a Republican, are running for reelection and will win their primaries bigly.
A week later, Mississippi holds primaries. Nothing to see there. A week after that, Illinois holds primaries. The latter could be important if Illinois legislators draw a new map and try to send two or three Republican representatives to the unemployment office.
Then, we get a biggie: Wisconsin holds a state Supreme Court election on April 7. In the past three Wisconsin Supreme Court elections, liberal (nominally nonpartisan) candidates have wiped the floor with conservative candidates. On April 1, 2025, Susan Crawford, backed by the Democrats, crushed Brad Schimel, backed by the Republicans, 55% to 45%, despite Elon Musk chucking $25 million into a super PAC supporting Schimel. Musk could look in his couch for some lost coins to help the Republican again, but the potential embarrassment of being crushed again might deter him. It is an open-seat race as conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley declined to run for retention.
The Republican has to decide whether to embrace Trump or reject him. With his approval rating moving into the 30s, that is a tough call. Or maybe not that tough, after all. The GOP candidate is Maria Lazar, who sat for an interview this week, and said: "This is not a Republican versus a Democrat. This is a judicial race, and the reason why it's going to be different is that I am, through and through and all the way, a judge, not a politician." When a candidate says, "You know, I'm not REALLY a Republican at all and, in fact, I'm not REALLY a politician at all," that is not exactly hugging Donald Trump close.
If Democrats continue their winning streak, they can turn their thin 4-3 majority into a rather more hardy 5-2 majority. Since Wisconsin is the mother of all swing states, control of the Court is important for any 2028 election disputes, guaranteeing a huge battle for next year's election.
In any event, there's enough to keep politics-watchers engaged before things really start to get cooking in summer of next year. We guess the conversion of this site into a one-stop resource for knitting patterns and vegan, gluten-free pizza recipes will have to wait another year. (V & Z)