That is, if you think every bit of evidence from special elections is important. Personally, I don’t think that’s true. But Rhode Island held a special election for the State Senator for District 4, and the Republican candidate … didn’t do well.
For what it’s worth, the Democratic primary actually attracted more voters than the general election, so enthusiasm was down. The district was redrawn recently, so it’s not so easy to compare results. However, Political HQ makes this point:
Harris won this district by 11 points in 2024.
This is a 56 point Democratic overperformance.
Yes, 56. That’s not a typo.
The problem with interpreting results like these is that special elections are usually and basically an overly small sampling of those voters likely to vote in the next regularly scheduled election. As politics are local, it may be that independent voters had a negative reaction to Mr Asermely on a personal level.
Or the voters are outraged by the nonsense in the Trump Administration. We’ll just have to wait and see.
