Special Election Rundown

What They Can Tell Us About the General

For most American families, the 2022 midterm elections are a world away. They’re still busy at the beach or just preparing to send their kids back to school. For us political obsessives though, it’s just a mere 2,144 hours away as of the writing of this post.

Everyone is looking at the tea leaves between polling, primary turnout, new voter enrollment, and in the case of this special elections.

Now for those who are unsure what I’m talking about, special elections are the elections held between Republicans, Democrats, and third party candidates when an incumbent resigns, dies, or has to leave office before the next election cycle.

There will be a total of 41 special elections in 2022, 38 of which have already taken place including six in the House of Representatives. If you want to combine all the special elections from the entire cycle (2021 and 2022), 102 special elections will take place.

Special elections are just that, special. They have much lower turnout than the general elections which typically means the population is usually older, whiter, and more highly educated than a regular general election. Some of those factors benefit Republicans and some benefit Democrats.

Very few special elections result in flipping seats.

For example, ahead of the 2014 red wave there were 135 special elections, with Republicans having a net gain of just six. This is how many Senate seats they would pick up in November of that year. Likewise ahead of the Democrat wave in 2018, Republicans lost a net 19 seats out of 197 elections, not exactly the landslide losses that were awaiting them that year.

So when examining special elections, focus less on the number of seats each party gained and more on the overall swing of the electorate from the previous election cycle.