The Trump-Era Special Election Boomlet Is Over

Inside Elections: “In 2017 and 2018, special elections were the talk of the political town. The race for Georgia’s 6th District, a traditionally Republican seat that Trump carried by just a point, attracted tens of millions of dollars in donor money and countless hours of news coverage. It also jump-started the career of an unknown Democrat named Jon Ossoff, now the youngest member of the U.S. Senate. But it wasn’t just Georgia. Specials in Pennsylvania, Montana, even Kansas and South Carolina were treated as major political events.”

“By contrast, the Texas 6th race was a sleepy affair from a national perspective. The field of 23 candidates raised less than $3 million combined by April 11 — a tenth of what Ossoff alone raised in that 2017 race. Turnout in Texas was just 16%, a drop from 68% last November. Turnout in Georgia’s 6th also dropped from 2016 to 2017, but from 76% to a still-rocking 58%, and in the 2017 Montana special from 74% to 54%.”