Democrat Marilyn Lands defeated Republican Teddy Powell on Tuesday in a 62-37 landslide, easily prevailing in a nationally watched special election for a GOP-held seat in the Alabama House of Representatives.
Lands outperformed the 10th District’s normal lean by wide margins: Donald Trump carried the district by a 49-48 spread in 2020, according to Dave’s Redistricting App, while voters favored Republican David Cole over Lands 52-45 two years later.
While Republicans will still retain their supermajority in the chamber, both parties were paying close attention to see whether a recent ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court that threatened access to in vitro fertilization could be a winning issue in competitive areas like this suburban Huntsville constituency.
Lands focused intently on reproductive rights in her campaign to replace Cole, who resigned last summer after getting convicted on voter fraud charges. “It’s shameful that today women have fewer freedoms than I did two decades ago,” she said in one spot excoriating the state’s near-total abortion ban. Lands, a mental health counselor, also argued the legislature didn’t do enough to protect IVF when it passed a law earlier this month that shields clinics from liability.
Powell, a member of the City Council in Madison, adopted a very different strategy. He instead focused on issues like infrastructure and downplayed the importance of reproductive rights. “It’s certainly an issue that needs to be dealt with,” he told Politico, “but not our top issue. I don’t think that this is the issue that wins or loses the race.”
That calculus turned out to be wrong, and Lands just gave Democrats good reason to believe that Powell will be only the first of many Republicans to pay the price at the ballot box this year.
CALIFORNIA 20TH DISTRICT. The Associated Press projects a May 21 special general election between Assemblyman Vince Fong and Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux, two Republicans who will also face off in November for the full two-year term. Fong, who has support from Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and former Rep. Kevin McCarthy, took first in Tuesday’s all-party primary with 42%, while Boudreaux outpaced Democrat Marisa Wood 26-23 for the second place spot.
CALIFORNIA 45TH DISTRICT. Garden Grove City Councilwoman Kim Nguyen-Penaloza on Saturday conceded the March 5 top-two primary to her fellow Democrat, attorney Derek Tran. Tran edged out Nguyen-Penaloza 15.9-15.6—a margin of 366 votes—while Republican Rep. Michelle Steel took first with 55%. Joe Biden carried this constituency in western Orange County 52-46.
COLORADO 4TH DISTRICT. Former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez announced Thursday that he would seek the GOP nomination for the special election to replace fellow Republican Ken Buck, whose resignation was to take effect the next day, but he said he would not run for a full two-year term.
Lopez, who lost the 2018 and 2022 primaries for governor, told a conservative radio host that his decision “would allow those that are seeking a career in public service to run their campaigns unencumbered by the restrictions of a special election.”
Party leaders will choose their nominee for the June 25 special election to replace Buck when they gather on March 28. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who is not seeking their approval, has argued they should pick someone like Lopez who won’t seek a full two-year term, and conservative talk radio host Deborah Flora also made that same case on Thursday despite saying recently that the district “can’t afford a placeholder.”
“For purposes of voter confidence the best outcome of this insider process would be to elect a placeholder to immediately engage on behalf of CD-4 citizens,” Flora wrote in a statement. However, she did not say whether she’d no longer try to convince local Republicans to choose her as their nominee, though the Colorado Sun interpreted her remarks that way. (Florida previously said she was “all in” for the special election.)
The outlet adds that state Rep. Mike Lynch also has decided not to run in the special, though there’s no quote from him.
TEXAS 15TH DISTRICT. The Latino advocacy group Somos Pilares has announced a $1.5 million bilingual ad campaign taking GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz to task for “voting to cut access to Social Security and Medicare and voting to cut programs working people count on.” The spending is welcome news for Democrat Michelle Vallejo, who didn’t attract much outside support in 2022 ahead of her 53-45 loss to De La Cruz and is hoping their rematch will be different. Donald Trump carried this Rio Grande Valley seat 51-48 in 2020.
FLORIDA 27TH DISTRICT. EMILYs List has endorsed Miami-Dade County School Board member Lucia Baez-Geller’s campaign to take on GOP Rep. María Elvira Salazar. Baez-Geller faces former Key Biscayne Mayor Mike Davey in the Aug. 20 Democratic primary for this Miami-area seat.
WISCONSIN 8TH DISTRICT. There goes another one! Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, who announced his retirement from the House just last month, said on Friday that he would resign early, setting his last day as April 19.
The timing of Gallagher’s departure means that the special election to fill his soon-to-be-vacant district will be consolidated with Wisconsin’s regularly scheduled November elections, with a primary held on Aug 13, the same day as the state’s normal primaries. Wisconsin’s 8th District, which is based in the northeastern part of the state, favored Donald Trump 57-41 in 2020.
Gallagher’s resignation will also reduce House Speaker Mike Johnson’s margin for error to just a single vote. Once Gallagher leaves, the GOP caucus will shrink to 217 members, while Democrats will hold 213 seats. Therefore, if two Republicans defect on any given vote and join with a unified Democratic minority, the resulting roll call would be a 215-215 tie, which is the same as a loss.
Far-right political consultant Alex Bruesewitz on Sunday teased a “BIG ANNOUNCEMENT IN GREEN BAY APRIL 8TH” as he mulls a bid to succeed Rep. Mike Gallagher, who recently announced he would resign. Spectrum News wrote last month that Bruesewitz, who considered challenging Gallagher in the Republican primary before the incumbent decided he’d had enough of Congress, lives in Florida. There is no word if Bruesewitz has since relocated back to Wisconsin, where he was born.
PENNSYLVANIA 1ST DISTRICT. Inside Elections’ Jacob Rubashkin reported Monday that Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick is airing ads targeting anti-abortion activist Mark Houck ahead of their April 23 primary in Pennsylvania’s 1st District, though so far Rubashkin has tracked just $23,000 on streaming TV via AdImpact. Still, the congressman’s campaign is taking his underfunded opponent seriously enough to run this commercial summing Houck up as a “porn addict, con artist, [and] narcissist.”
What this spot lacks, though, is the familiar “stand-by-your-ad” disclaimer—”I’m Jane Smith, and I approve this message,” that the 2002 McCain–Feingold Act mandated for all TV ads run by federal candidates.
However, the FEC adopted new rules at the end of 2022 clarifying that this refrain—which has been parodied in pop culture and in campaign ads themselves—is only required for television and radio ads delivered by broadcast, cable, or satellite. The Commission concluded that it lacked the authority to mandate such disclaimers for ads distributed via the internet, including those that appear on social media platforms or on streaming services.
As a result, the same ad could, for example, run on both NBC and on Peacock, the streaming platform owned by the network, with a spoken disclaimer on the former and without one on the latter. And for sleuths tracking down copies of political ads on YouTube, the absence of a stand-by-your-ad disclaimer no longer means that a spot won’t appear on television screens. However, written disclaimers are still required for all internet ads.
COLORADO 5TH DISTRICT.: Dave Williams, the chair of the Colorado Republican Party, won Saturday’s GOP convention with just over 70% of the vote, a showing that means he’ll be the first candidate listed on the June 25 primary ballot to replace retiring Rep. Doug Lamborn in the state’s 5th District. Anti-tax activist Douglas Bruce and Army veteran Joshua Griffin weren’t so lucky, though, as their poor performance meant the end of their campaigns to represent this conservative seat in the Colorado Springs area.
The weekend’s event played an important role because of Colorado’s unusual ballot access laws. Candidates can try to reach the primary in one of two ways: either by winning the support of at least 30% of the delegates at their party’s biennial convention (also known locally as an “assembly”) or by collecting the requisite 1,500 signatures by last Tuesday’s deadline.
Two other Republicans, conservative radio host Jeff Crank and state Sen. Bob Gardner, both decided to skip the convention and petition their way onto the ballot. While they had the option to try both routes, anyone who takes less than 10% of the vote at the assembly gets eliminated from contention no matter how many signatures they turn in. Election officials have already confirmed that Crank filed a sufficient number of signatures, while they’re still verifying Gardner’s submission.
The other three Republicans—Williams, Bruce, and Griffin—were depending entirely on delegates to place them on the ballot, though Williams’ position as leader of the state GOP and his endorsement from Donald Trump meant there was little question that he’d advance.
Griffin, however, argued that Williams also had an unfair advantage. The now-former candidate last week filed a criminal complaint with El Paso County prosecutors alleging fraud, saying that county GOP chair Vickie Tonkins told him that a list of delegates was “not ready” when he’d asked for it even though Williams had just emailed those very delegates. Both Williams and Tonkins have disputed the allegations.
FLORIDA 15TH DISTRICT. Donald Trump used Sunday night to encourage “great MAGA Republicans” to challenge freshman Rep. Laurel Lee in Florida’s Aug. 20 primary, and one familiar name was quick to offer herself up.
Former state Rep. Jackie Toledo, who took a distant third place against Lee in the 2022 GOP primary for Florida’s 15th District, made her feelings known in a reply to a tweet from far-right troll Laura Loomer screenshotting Trump’s Truth Social message. “Great MAGA Republican answering the call and ready to serve… #MAGA.” (Yes, would-be Republican candidates break news these days in the replies of tweets with screenshots of messages from other platforms.) Toledo also attached a photo from her last campaign of her wearing a cowboy hat bearing the slogan, “TRUMP 2020 NO MORE BULLSHIT!!”
While Trump didn’t specify why he wanted Lee ousted, observers were quick to note that Lee was the lone member of Florida’s congressional delegation to support Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid. Lee, whom DeSantis previously appointed secretary of state in 2019, endorsed Trump the day after her old boss suspended his White House campaign, but that evidently wasn’t quick enough for the GOP’s master.
Trump may also have unresolved grievances from the last presidential election. Politico notes that Lee refused calls from election deniers to “audit” the state’s 2020 presidential election even though Trump won Florida’s electoral votes. A super PAC supporting state Sen. Kelli Stargel even ran ads during the 2022 congressional primary attacking Lee for her refusal, but that didn’t stop Lee from winning by a 41-28 margin; Toledo finished far behind with just 12%.
In December, Trump similarly encouraged a primary bid against another DeSantis ally, Texas Rep. Chip Roy—but he only managed to do so after the candidate filing deadline. This time, he might have actually glanced at a calendar before firing off his anti-Lee missive: Qualifying for Florida congressional candidates closes on April 26, and notable names have a history of jumping in on or just before the deadline.
That also means there’s still time for a Democrat to enter the race—and GOP infighting could provide an added inducement. Trump carried the 15th District, which includes a portion of Tampa and its northeastern suburbs, by the same 51-48 margin that he carried the state as a whole. Republicans in Florida’s major contests in 2022 also closely matched their statewide marks, according to analyst Matthew Isbell: DeSantis won Lee’s district 59-40, while GOP Sen. Marco Rubio prevailed 57-41.
NORTH DAKOTA AT LARGE DISTRICT. GOP Gov. Doug Burgum on Friday announced his support for Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak, who is running for the House seat that fellow Republican Kelly Armstrong is leaving behind to run for governor. (Burgum is backing Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller over Armstrong in the race to succeed him.) Fedorchak faces former State Department official Alex Balazs, former state Rep. Rick Becker, and former state Sen. Tom Campbell in the June 11 primary.
TEXAS 22ND DISTRICT. The House Ethics Committee announced Tuesday that it’s investigating Republican Rep. Troy Nehls, but it did not provide any details about why. Nehls subsequently described the probe as an “inquiry into my campaign’s finances,” though he didn’t offer further information about the allegations. The Ethics Committee has pledged to “announce its course of action in this matter” by May 10.
Nehls won renomination without opposition this month in Texas’ 22nd District, a suburban Houston constituency that backed Donald Trump 57-41 in 2020.
TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL. Federal prosecutors announced a deal with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday under which they agreed to drop his nearly nine-year-old indictment for securities fraud as long as he pays $271,000 in restitution over the next 18 months. The agreement also requires the far-right Republican to perform 100 hours of community service, but he’ll face no jail time.
The Texas Tribune, however, notes that Paxton’s legal woes are not all resolved. Federal authorities reportedly are continuing to investigate whether the attorney general used his post to benefit a wealthy ally. The state House impeached Paxton last May over these allegations, only for the Senate to subsequently acquit him.
Four of Paxton’s former top aides are also still suing him for allegedly retaliating against them for helping in the federal investigation. The Texas State Bar additionally brought a lawsuit for professional misconduct lawsuit against him in 2022 over his efforts to overturn the results of the last presidential election, though the case remains unresolved.
Paxton has spent the last several months working to punish the Republicans who crossed him last year. The attorney general backed a slate of legislative candidates in the March 5 primaries, several of whom ousted his enemies.
Other GOP incumbents, including state House Speaker Dade Phelan, were forced into runoffs, which will take place on May 28. Donald Trump in January joined Paxton in supporting David Covey’s bid to unseat Phelan, with Trump citing the speaker’s support for what he characteristically dismissed as “the Fraudulent Impeachment.”
Paxton, however, has hinted that he could personally challenge an even more prominent intra-party critic next cycle rather than seek a fourth term. In September, he celebrated his acquittal by the state Senate by telling Fox he wasn’t ruling out a primary bid against Sen. John Cornyn in 2026.
Paxton intensified Senate chatter last month when he responded to the news that Cornyn would seek to replace Mitch McConnell as the chamber’s top Republican by tweeting, “It will be difficult for @JohnCornyn to be an effective leader since he is anti-Trump, anti-gun, and will be focused on his highly competitive primary campaign in 2026.” Cornyn fired back by snarking, “Hard to run from prison, Ken,” a response that lost much of its bite on Tuesday.
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