As President Donald Trump yelled at Democrats and berated the Supreme Court during his State of the Union address, members of his Republican Party were getting hammered in the polls.
Three Democrats won special elections for House seats in Maine and Pennsylvania, helping the party maintain slim majorities in both states’ legislative chambers and providing insights into the priorities of voters in both states that could have a decisive impact on control of Congress in November.
In Maine, Republican Sen. Susan Collins faces a tough re-election campaign that Democrats see as one of their best chances of gaining a Senate seat during the midterm elections.
The candidate backed by Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins lost to Democrats in Tuesday’s special election. / Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag
Collins endorsed Republican Janet Beaudoin in Tuesday’s race, but voters chose Democrat Scott Harriman by more than 6 percentage points, the Maine Morning Star reported.
In Pennsylvania, several key House races will help determine which party retains control of the lower chamber of Congress, with Democrats Anna Tiburcio and Jennifer Mazzocco winning handily, the Lehigh Valley News reported.
All three districts lean blue, but Maine Republicans have made a point of bringing in big-name names in hopes of flipping the results.
In addition to Collins, former Gov. Paul LePage, who is running for Congress, also campaigned for the Republican candidate, while Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin also campaigned for Harriman earlier this month, The Hill reported.
The victories were a clear rebuttal to Trump’s insistence in his record-breaking State of the Union address that he had seen the economy “turn around for years” and that the affordability crisis was a “dirty, rotten lie” concocted by Democrats.
In both states, affordability, housing and ICE’s violent enforcement tactics emerged as top issues for voters in both states, the Morning Star and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
In his State of the Union address, President Trump boasted that he had seen the economy “turn around for years.” / Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag
In his speech on Tuesday, Trump ranted about “illegal aliens” while ignoring the killings of U.S. citizens Renee Nicole Goode and Alex Pretty at the hands of federal immigration agents.
Ahead of Tuesday’s races, Democratic candidates were 10 to 14 percentage points ahead of Trump’s 2024 results in 20 state-level special elections in Virginia, New York, Minnesota and Connecticut.
In a Texas district that Trump won by 17 points in 2024, first-time state Senate candidate Taylor Rehmet defeated her Republican opponent by 13 points, becoming the first Democrat to win the seat in decades.
Those performances put some new seats in play in the midterm elections, leaving Republicans scrambling to jump-start their base before November.
