Welcome to At the Races! Each week we bring you news and analysis from the CQ Roll Call campaign team. Know someone who’d like to get this newsletter? They can subscribe here.
Pennsylvania Democrats won a pair of legislative races this week, flipping a state Senate district and retaining a state House seat to keep their one-seat majority in the chamber.
But it’s the former result that has drawn the most attention. Democrats’ win in a district that voted for Donald Trump by 15 points in November comes on the heels of other examples of Democratic overperformance in down-ballot special elections this year, including in Iowa and Virginia.
“Democrats are building back power at the grassroots as voters join us in fighting against the Trump-Musk agenda,” Libby Schneider, the deputy executive director of the Democratic National Committee, wrote in a Wednesday memo.
The Pennsylvania results, which come a week before a pair of special House elections in Florida and a hotly contested fight for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, are encouraging for Democrats looking to regain their political footing as they weigh how best to respond to the Trump administration.
House Republicans expect to hold the two Florida seats next week, which should help pad their narrow majority. But there’s been some GOP hand-wringing over one of their nominees, state Sen. Randy Fine in the 6th District, who has been outraised by his Democratic opponent, Josh Weil, in a district that the previous congressman, national security adviser Mike Waltz, won by 33 points last year.
North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, reportedly said this week that he wasn’t “overly concerned” about the special election but that Fine could have been up on air earlier. Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he expects an “underperformance” in the 6th District race, Florida Politics reported.
In Wisconsin, the high court election outcome will determine whether liberals maintain their 4-3 majority on the bench or conservatives win back control. The campaign has broken spending records, and both sides are expecting a close race and reporting base voter enthusiasm to turn out for the regularly scheduled off-year election.
Meanwhile, Trump’s decision today to withdraw New York Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations effectively calls off a special election to succeed her in upstate New York that has been taking shape over the past few months. Democratic county leaders picked dairy farmer Blake Gendebien as their candidate in the never-scheduled race, while their Republican counterparts hadn’t yet coalesced around a nominee. Stefanik won reelection last year by 24 points.
Starting gate
We’ve seen this movie before: Sometimes it takes more than one cycle to win a seat in Congress, and strategists in both parties are looking to candidates who performed well in 2024 to run again in 2026.
Mapmaker, mapmaker: The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in the yearslong fight over a second Black-majority congressional district in Louisiana. Our colleague Michael Macagnone has more on the hearing, including concerns raised by conservative justices about the future of race in redistricting.
Tariff watch: Roll Call’s Olivia M. Bridges has the latest on Trump’s use of tariffs, with Wednesday’s announcement of an additional 25 percent levy on imported cars and light-duty trucks. As the president’s trade policies continue to roil the stock markets, he warned overnight in a social media post that further sweeping tariffs were possible if “the European Union works with Canada in order to do economic harm to the USA.”
Budget wrangling: Republicans on Capitol Hill continue to try to reach an agreement on how to move forward with a reconciliation bill that would help implement other parts of the president’s agenda.
Rose on the rise? Republican Rep. John W. Rose formally launched his bid for Tennessee governor last week, setting up a potential primary battle with Sen. Marsha Blackburn, our colleague Victor Feldman reports.
Campaign pledge fulfilled: Trump signed an executive order last week directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to start dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, making good on a campaign promise. But McMahon has acknowledged that congressional action is needed to fully fold the department.
In memoriam: Trailblazing former Rep. Mia Love of Utah died Sunday at age 49, following a diagnosis of brain cancer in 2022. Love, the daughter of immigrants from Haiti, was the first Black Republican woman elected to Congress. New York Democrat Nita M. Lowey, the first woman to chair the House Appropriations Committee, died Saturday at 87. Though small of stature and soft-spoken, the 16-term lawmaker was remembered as a savvy negotiator and a fierce advocate for progressive values. And former Louisiana Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, a moderate Democrat who served from 1972 to 1997, died Tuesday at the age of 92. Our colleague Jessica Wehrman has more on the mild-mannered senator, who fought off a surprisingly strong challenge from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in his last reelection race.
ICYMI
They’re running: Former Arizona state Rep. Daniel Hernández announced his campaign for the special election to succeed the late Democratic Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva. Hernández lost a bid for the Democratic nomination in the neighboring 6th District in 2022. In New York, the Democratic field to take on GOP Rep. Mike Lawler grew with Army veteran Cait Conley entering the race for the 17th District in the lower Hudson Valley. And in Illinois, Kat Abughazaleh, a progressive social media influencer, announced a primary challenge to longtime Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a progressive who has held her Chicagoland seat since 1999.
But he’s not running: Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes announced Wednesday night that he would not be running for the House seat left vacant by Grijalva’s death. “With this week’s executive order from the Trump administration, I firmly believe the president is laying the groundwork to cancel elections in 2026,” the Democrat said in a statement. As of last week, Fontes had not ruled out a primary challenge against Gov. Katie Hobbs, KTAR reported.
Brown’s new venture: Former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown launched a new nonprofit, the Dignity of Work Institute. The Democrat told The New York Times that he is weighing another run for office next year, either in the special election to complete Vice President JD Vance’s Senate term or the race to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.
Sticking with the House: Michigan Rep. Hillary Scholten won’t run for Senate, she told The Detroit News, and will instead seek a third term in the House. Scholten flipped her Grand Rapids-area seat in 2022.
Ad watch: The Republican Main Street Partnership announced a $500,000 ad campaign in support of GOP Reps. Juan Ciscomani of Arizona, Rob Bresnahan Jr. of Pennsylvania and Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin. The ads, which highlight their support for Medicare and Medicaid, come as Democrats have argued that Republicans plan to cut Medicaid funding as part of their reconciliation package.
Incoming Q for Senate candidates: Michigan Democrat Mallory McMorrow, who is considering running to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters, said it was time for Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer to step back from Senate leadership. “I would look for other leadership who understands that it’s a different moment,” the state senator said in an interview with Politico. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for Nancy Pelosi, who, similarly, while still in Congress, recognized it is time to have new leadership who can build up that muscle to respond to the moment.”
Unexpected targets: EMILY’s List named 46 House Republicans as top targets in next year’s midterms. Many of the lawmakers on the powerhouse Democratic PAC’s list represent battleground districts. But they also include several in safely red seats, including Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr, who won reelection by 26 points last year and is considering a Senate run, and South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson, who won his 2024 race by 19 points.
#TXSEN roundup: Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who came up short in his bid for Senate majority leader, formally announced Wednesday that he is running for reelection, with a video touting his support for the Trump agenda. The rollout came with a host of Senate Republicans endorsing Cornyn for the seat – perhaps all to ward off potential primary foes like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (whom we wrote about in last week’s newsletter) and Rep. Wesley Hunt, who is getting support from an outside group in the form of what the Texas Tribune reports is a seven-figure statewide ad buy. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, former Rep. Colin Allred, who lost a bid for the state’s other Senate seat last year, is “seriously considering” challenging Cornyn, per The Dallas Morning News.
Guv roundup: Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who lost a Senate bid in 2014, is running to succeed term-limited Gov. Janet Mills next year. In Florida, former Republican Rep. David Jolly, an outspoken Trump critic who left the party in 2018, is weighing a bid for governor as a Democrat. In New Jersey, Republican former state Sen. Ed Durr ended his campaign for governor and endorsed radio show host Bill Spadea in the June GOP primary. Meanwhile, in New Mexico, former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland could be getting company in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, with Lt. Gov. Howie Morales “not ruling out” a bid and Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman, the father of Boston Red Sox infielder Alex Bregman, revealing a “big announcement” on April 10.
Paying your dues: Powerful House committee leaders have to raise enormous amounts of money, not just for their own reelection campaigns but for their parties too. Issue One, a cross-partisan education and advocacy group that focuses on money in politics, looked at the dues paid by the top Republicans and Democrats on the House Appropriations, Energy and Commerce, Financial Services, and Ways and Means committees and found that the GOP chairs raised $5.3 million for the NRCC between January 2023 and December 2024. Over the same period, the four top Democrats on these committees raised at least $2.3 million for the DCCC.
What we’re reading
AOC’s next steps: New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appears poised to take up the progressive mantle. The New York Times reports that the 35-year-old Democrat has multiple choices for the next steps in her political career: remaining in the House, challenging Schumer in 2028 or even running for president.
#NJGOV: Our friend and Roll Call alumna Bridget Bowman of NBC News looks at how Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill is handling whispers about whether New Jersey voters would support a woman in this year’s gubernatorial race. Sherrill, the only woman in the race, faces five other major candidates in the June primary.
Seeing red: Trump allies and congressional Republicans are stepping up their scrutiny and condemnation of ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform, including calls for probes by the Treasury Department and FBI, CNN reports.
To resist or not to resist: Vanity Fair takes a look at Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, the most vulnerable Democratic senator up for reelection next year, who has kept a fairly low profile during his tenure in Washington but appears to be amping up his criticisms of the Trump administration.
All about Evie: The New York Times profiles Evie, a glossy magazine aimed at conservative women that has won praise from Steve Bannon and Candace Owens.
Seeing red: Trump allies and congressional Republicans are stepping up their scrutiny and condemnation of ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform, including calls for probes by the Treasury Department and FBI, CNN reports.
The count: 5
That’s how many members of the 119th Congress still have a more than decent shot at seeing their alma mater win either the men’s or women’s side of the annual NCAA Division I basketball tournament this year.
In total, 154 members attended colleges that won spots in the 64-team men’s bracket. Of those, 51 went to schools that make up the final 16 teams, known as the “Sweet 16.”
Three of the 51 have two schools still in the running:
- Rep. Jim Baird, R-Ind., earned two degrees from Purdue University and one from the University of Kentucky.
- Rep. Mike Kennedy, R-Utah, earned two degrees from Brigham Young University and one from Michigan State University.
- Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, D-Mich., earned degrees from both the University of Michigan and Michigan State.
On the women’s side, 189 members of Congress attended schools that qualified for the tournament, with 73 attending institutions that made the Sweet 16.
One of those 73 went to two different Sweet 16 schools: Rep. Nanette Barragán, D-Calif., earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a doctorate at the University of Southern California.
The member who looks to have the best shot at one of her schools winning one side of the 2025 tournament, though, is Iowa Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, an ophthalmologist who earned degrees from three schools in the final 16 teams on the women’s side: the University of Southern California and the University of Texas (both No. 1 seeds), as well as Texas Christian University (a No. 2 seed).
— By Roll Call’s Ryan Kelly
Coming up
April Fool’s Day is Tuesday, but we’ll also have some very real election results, including from Florida, which is holding special elections for the 1st and 6th District seats vacated by Republicans Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz, respectively. In Wisconsin, voters will decide on their pivotal Supreme Court race, as well as one for superintendent of public instruction and a ballot measure that would add a voter ID requirement to the state constitution.
Photo finish
Subscribe now using this link so you don’t miss out on the best news and analysis from our team.
The post At the Races: Spring fever appeared first on Roll Call.
