Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sounded an alarm to fellow Republicans after a Democrat won Saturday's special election in a deep-red Texas district, and CNN's Harry Enten said the governor is right to be worried.
Local union leader Taylor Rehment took down Leigh Wambsganns, a conservative activist endorsed by President Donald Trump, in a special election runoff for state senate in a reliably Republican district in the Fort Worth area. Enten told "CNN News Central" the Democratic gain was part of a nationwide trend.
"What happened in Texas 9, it didn't just swing to the left, it took a rocket ship to the left," Enten said. "My goodness gracious, the Texas 9 Senate district election margins, this was a district that Donald Trump won by 17 points in 2024. For the Democratic candidate in the special election on Saturday – hello, won it by 14 points. That's an over 30-point shift to the left. Any Republican, unlike Ron DeSantis, who doesn't take this seriously, they should realize that this is very perilous. They ignore this result at their own peril. Ron DeSantis is right to say, hey, special elections can be quirky, but this ain't no quirk."
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) blamed the election upset on an ice storm over the weekend, but Enten disagreed.
"No, that ain't no ice storm," Enten said. "If you ignore this, you're going to ice yourself out of a majority come the midterms."
"So, you know, you see this 31-point shift to the left, right," he continued. "If this were just one election, that would be one thing. But it's the slew of special elections that together paint a picture, and it's a picture that Democrats should love and a picture that Republicans should be really worried about because what are we talking about here? Okay, the average 2025, 2026 special elections Democrats are doing, get this, 12 points better, 12 points better than Kamala Harris did in 2024, and you know, that was a state special election that happened in Texas on Saturday. If you look at the federal special elections, this 12 points is actually north of 15 points on average."
"I was looking back through the history books," Enten added. "This looks a whole heck of a lot like what we saw during the 2017-2018 cycle, where you saw these Democrats outperforming how Hillary Clinton did in 2016, and what did it forecast? It forecasts a net gain of 40 seats for Democrats, and I remember back in Pennsylvania, remember, there was that southwest, that was a congressional special election seat, but that was one in which the Democratic candidate was able to actually win in a deeply red Republican district and that, of course, foretold big Democratic gains come 2018."
Democrats have been consistently outperforming Harris in elections since 2024, and Enten said that trend historically predicts midterm results.
"Okay, so you see this 12-point overperformance, you see this 31-point overperformance, but that don't mean nothing if it ain't forecastable to the midterm elections," he said. "So what are we looking at here? Well, take a look at special elections, since all the way back in the 2005-2006 cycle, five out of five times the party that outperforms in the special elections goes on to win the U.S. House of Representatives, and this, of course, all paints a picture, right? Texas 9, the special elections, the history of special elections in which Democrats look like they're in the catbird seat to take back the U.S. House come 2026, November."
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