Republicans appear on track to win two congressional seats

Republicans appeared poised to win two congressional seats – one in Wisconsin and one in California – in special election races that are being watched closely as preludes to the general election in November as many states will move to mail-in voting amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In Wisconsin, the Republican Tom Tiffany notched an easy victory, in a reliably red district. In California, early results indicated the Republican Mike Garcia is on track to retake a seat that Democrats had flipped in 2018. Both seats will be up for election again in November.

The California vote was based almost entirely on mailed-in ballots, and the full results likely won’t be clear for days. Officials will accept ballots postmarked by election day, even if they arrive up to three days later.

Whoever wins the California special election would fill the seat of the former US representative Katie Hill, who resigned amid scandal in late 2019. The circumstances of Hill’s resignation – she quit amid allegations that she had an affair with a staffer, and after private photos of her had been published online without her consent – had brought national attention to the race. Donald Trump, who endorsed Garcia and alleged that the election was “rigged” because of the opening of a new voting center in the district, also ensured that the race was closely watched, especially by Democrats who believed it would be a referendum on the president.

On Wednesday morning, Garcia, a former navy fighter pilot, was ahead of the Democratic California state legislator Christy Smith by 55.9% to 44.1%, preliminary results from the California secretary of state’s office said.

“It is looking extremely good,” Garcia said on a conference call. “I won’t give a victory speech tonight. We’ll save that for hopefully tomorrow night as the data comes in.”

Smith earned the endorsements of Barack Obama and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Hill’s unpopularity in the district, post-scandal, had been a hurdle for her campaign. Prior to the election, the Cook Political Report changed its assessment of the race from “lean Democratic” to a “tossup” as the pandemic shut down traditional campaigning through door-knocking and town halls.

Regardless of the outcome, Democrats are hopeful about Smith’s chances in the November election. “The electorate will be very different then,” said Rose Kapolczynski, a Democratic strategist based in Los Angeles. “And I still think Smith will have a strong chance.”

It is wise to avoid projecting too much about the November elections based on this race, said Paul Mitchell, with the campaign research firm Political Data Inc. “To do so would be like predicting the championship based on the results of two-on-two basketball game before the finals,” Mitchell said.

Traditionally, older, white, and Republican voters are overrepresented in special elections, Mitchell said. Younger and minority voters, who lean Democratic, are more likely to vote in larger numbers in November.

In Wisconsin, Tiffany, a state senator endorsed by Trump, easily won a special congressional election in a heavily conservative, rural Wisconsin district. But Democrats are likely to watch his margin of victory – and consider it evidence of that party’s gains if Tiffany’s opponent Tricia Zunker performs better than the 20-point defeat the Democrats faced in district in 2018. Preliminary results show Tiffany leading by 14 points.

“For Trump to win re-election, red areas have to get redder to balance out blue areas getting bluer,“ said the Wisconsin Democratic party spokeswoman, Courtney Beyer.

But Tiffany dismissed the argument. “Any time you lose by 14 points, I don’t think that’s a moral victory,” he said. “This is a decisive victory here.”

Tiffany will replace the former reality TV star Sean Duffy, a Republican who retired in September. The district has been vacant since Duffy’s retirement.

Zunker, the president of the Wausau school board, was trying to become the first Native American from Wisconsin elected to Congress. She pulled in big-name endorsements including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, but the numbers were against her. The district has been under Republican control since 2011 and was redistricted to more heavily favor Republicans.