Evidently, 2024 was a major year in US politics. Former President Donald Trump of the Republican Party defeated incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris of the Democratic Party in the presidential election, becoming the 45th and 47th president of the United States. The GOP also won a narrow majority in the House and a much more comfortable majority with 53 seats won in the Senate.
Odd years are a lot less eventful in the US than even ones. However, that does not mean that there will not be any elections held before the 2026 midterms.
Florida Special Election and Wisconsin Supreme Court Election in April
On 1 April, not the most fortunate of dates, a Federal and a state election will take place in Florida and Wisconsin, respectively.
President Trump originally nominated Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz for Attorney General of the United States. Gaetz immediately resigned from his seat in the House, officially in preparation for his confirmation hearing. However, it was more likely to prevent the House ethics report from being released about his alleged sexual misconduct. Gaetz and his allies argued that such a report cannot be published on someone who is not a sitting member of Congress.
However, Gaetz has failed on two fronts. He ultimately withdrew his name from the nomination for AG after it became clear that not enough Senators would support him to be confirmed, and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi replaced him. Also, his House ethics report was eventually released after all.
His seat in Florida’s 1st congressional district is now vacant. That means that Republicans go into President Trump’s first year back in the White House with just 219 seats filled in the House, a very slim four-seat majority. To make it five, the party has to win the special election in April. They are in a very good position to do so: despite his scandals, Gaetz won reelection in November by 32 points.
Meanwhile in Wisconsin, the balance of the State Supreme Court is at stake. The seven-seat bench is comprised of four liberal and three conservative justices. Liberal Ann Walsh Bradley is retiring after 30 years in the Court. If Republicans manage to get a conservative judge elected on 1 April, they will flip the Supreme Court in the swing state of Wisconsin (which President Trump won by 0.9 points in 2024).
A year before, in April 2024, the state GOP-proposed and backed referendum passed in a landslide in Wisconsin, putting a constitutional ban on outside money coming in to influence elections and the participation of non-state-appointed officials in the electoral process. Then, many conservative sceptics argued that a liberal Supreme Court would not uphold challenges based on that amendment. Now, conservatives in the Badger State can make sure that will not be the case if they come to the polls in sufficient numbers.
Gubernatorial Elections in Virginia and New Jersey in November
On 4 November, voters will take to the polls in the states of Virginia and New Jersey to elect their next governors.
Both incumbents are term-limited, so the incumbent advantage does not apply in either case. Virginia is the only state in the Union to have a one-term limit on its Governor in its State Constitution. It originates from the locals’ particular disdain and misgivings of political rulers at the time of the American Revolution.
Governor Glenn Youngkin of the Republican Party is coming to the end of his single term and remains popular with the people of the Commonwealth. He has already endorsed his lieutenant governor Winsome Sears as his successor.
Some polls were showing the presidential race competitive in Virginia in 2024, but Vice President Kamala Harris ended up carrying it by 5.8 points. That is still a substantial shift to the right from four years ago when Joe Biden won by 10 points.
Governor Phil Murphy of the Democratic Party is currently serving out his ‘standard’ two full two terms in New Jersey. The Garden State zoomed to the right in the 2024 presidential election: Harris performed 10 points worse than Biden there. Will this movement be enough for the GOP to flip that governor’s seat red? We will have to wait and see.
Currently, Republicans hold 27 of the 50 state governorships, while Democrats are holding the remaining 23.
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