April 02, 2025 01:13 PM UTC

Special Elections Leave Vulnerable Republicans Like Gabe Evans Sweating

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake writes today following yesterday’s special elections in Wisconsin and Florida, the steady turn of public opinion against Donald Trump and the MAGAfied Republican Party after two months of rule by chaos manifested in one ominous defeat and two equally troubling narrower-than-expected holds for the GOP:

The first big elections of 2025 were held Tuesday, giving the first major indicator of where the country stands since President Donald Trump’s 2024 election win five months ago.

Wisconsin held a much-watched and expensive state supreme court race featuring a very heavy dose of Elon Musk, while Florida hosted a pair of special elections for U.S. House seats — including one that looked potentially competitive, despite Trump carrying the district by 30 points just five months ago.

In the end, Democrats scored a decisive victory in the Wisconsin race, while Republicans held both Florida seats by double digits — but by significantly smaller margins than usual.

Politico’s Irie Sentner reports that discontent with the direction of the country under Trump 2.0, and in Wisconsin a potent backlash against the brazen attempt by the world’s richest man Elon Musk to purchase a state Supreme Court race, turned last night into a big flashing red warning sign for Republicans still buoyant from last November’s “red wave.”

Over the past 10 weeks, President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have worked to hobble the federal government, pummel into submission the country’s most powerful independent institutions and enact a sweeping nationalist agenda with little regard — and often disdain — for political norms and the Constitution itself. And they’ve done so with near-universal support from the GOP in Washington.

Then the voters got the chance to speak.

In two deep-red House districts in Florida, Republicans had lower-than-expected margins as they clinched the safe seats vacated by “America First” royalty only after sending in national and state reinforcements, including Trump himself, to drum up support. And in Wisconsin, they suffered a crushing defeat in a record-breakingly expensive Supreme Court race. After Musk’s money and personality dominated the contest, liberal Judge Susan Crawford secured a 9-point victory against Trump’s endorsed candidate, Brad Schimel.

If you apply the reduced margin by which Republican candidates prevailed in yesterday’s congressional special elections in Florida to swing races across the country, the danger for Republicans is starkly obvious. Such a reduction in support would more than erase the margin of victory for Colorado’s most vulnerable Republican member of Congress, Rep. Gabe Evans. Last night, CNN’s John King highlighted the CO-08 race as an example of this newfound weakness:

KING: Let’s look at the House races. So imagine you’re this guy. I’m going to pop up the state of Colorado. I’m going to pop up. I was in this district just about a month or two ago. Colorado’s 8th. You’re Gabe Evans, a Republican who ran with Donald Trump on the Trump agenda. [Pols emphasis] You just barely won in one of the most competitive races in the country.

So you’re going to wake up tomorrow, maybe not panic, but you’re going to call your political team and you’re going to talk to the House Republican political team and say, Well, Florida didn’t go that great. They were way, way below the margins. So what’s going to happen right there?

We’ve said from the beginning that Gabe Evans’ airtight bond with the Trump brand is a significant misfit for the state’s most narrowly divided congressional district. Now we have quantifiable evidence of the cost of loyalty to Trump over the best interests of one’s constituents. If the election were held tomorrow, the cost would be greater than Gabe Evans’ narrow margin of victory last year. It’s too late for Evans to pivot away from Trump now that Trump’s approval is plummeting, since it would look like desperation to supporters and opponents alike–and cost Evans base support he cannot afford to lose.

For Evans and vulnerable Republicans like him, last night yielded no good news; only hope against hope that it doesn’t get worse before it’s their turn to face the voters.