A trio of election results this week have Republicans confronting a new reality: not only are they facing political headwinds as the party in power but simultaneously grappling with a dramatic reversal in the partisan preferences of the country’s most reliable voters.
For years, Republicans were seen as the party that dominated lower profile elections outside presidential years, while Democratic voters were less consistent. But under President Donald Trump, Republicans worry their base has shifted to include low propensity voters who turn out for him but are not as motivated as Democrats to show up when he’s not on the ballot.
Democrats have overperformed the top of the 2024 ticket in nearly every special election this year, flipped control of two state Senate seats in Iowa and Pennsylvania, halved the margins for two open US House seats in Florida and won a high-profile Wisconsin state Supreme Court race by a resounding 10 points. While Democrats have said those results are a sign that voters are rejecting the Trump administration’s agenda, some top Republicans have raised alarms about turning out the base.
“The political problem on the Republican side of the aisle is how to get our base to vote in off-cycle elections,” Vice President JD Vance wrote on X, adding that it was time for the GOP establishment to learn from Trump’s political success.
Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, argued that Republicans must acknowledge that they are the party of low propensity voters, or people who don’t consistently show up to vote.
“Special elections and off-cycle elections will continue to be a problem without a change of strategy,” he wrote on X.
Kirk, whose organization worked to engage low propensity voters in swing states during the 2024 election cycle, said politics is an “afterthought” for many of their voters and Republicans needed to “begin to fully fund the infrastructure to match the Democrat machine” ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Turning out Trump loyalists who vote infrequently could be key to Republicans’ electoral fortunes, especially as the president’s agenda risks pushing away independent and moderate swing voters.
Republicans are also hoping to maintain control of the Virginia governor’s seat, despite the state’s Democratic lean and potentially build on their narrow House and Senate majorities.
The party that wins the White House historically loses seats in midterm cycle that follows, and voters have become increasingly willing to back split government – Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden all lost the House two years after first being elected.
One GOP political operative familiar with House campaigns said the party is still on offense and pointed to the 13 US House districts Trump won in 2024 that are held by Democrats. Republicans have also noted it’s too early to say what the political climate, the economy or Trump’s approval ratings will look like next year.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week found that Trump had a 43% approval rating, with 52% of Americans saying they agree tariffs on imported goods would do more harm than good and 57% viewing the president’s moves to shake up the economy as too erratic.
The party of low propensity voters
Throughout the Trump era, Democrats have pointed to special and off-year election victories and closer-than-expected losses as evidence of a momentum advantage. During Trump’s first term, Democrats won a GOP-held Pittsburgh-area US House seat and an Alabama US Senate seat in special elections ahead of winning back the House in 2018. The party also significantly cut into GOP margins in a handful of special elections for deep-red US House seats in states such as Kansas and South Carolina.
Mike DuHaime, a former political director of the Republican National Committee, said Republicans would have to learn the same lesson Democrats did under Obama. Despite his 2008 and 2012 wins, Democrats suffered substantial downballot losses in the 2010 and 2014 midterms.
“When it comes down to turning out Republicans, it takes money, it takes a message, and it takes an exciting candidate,” DuHaime said.
He pointed to Wisconsin, where Brad Schimel, a conservative state Supreme Court candidate endorsed by Trump, lost to liberal Susan Crawford. Though Schimel won 63% of the number of votes Trump received in November – exceeding the 60% mark Republicans estimated they needed to win – Crawford won 78% of the number of votes Vice President Kamala Harris received. Schimel lost despite Trump hosting a tele-rally to back him and Tesla CEO Elon Muskcombining with allied groups to spend more than $20 million to boost him.