How Trump Made Special Elections Great Again
For the past couple of months, Congress has been caught up in an unsettling guessing game: Who will be the next lawmaker dethroned by allegations of sexual misconduct? A half-dozen members have either stepped down already or announced they won’t seek reelection. More are expected to follow in the new year.
Whatever the broader cultural import of this reckoning, it is already having a concrete political impact: special elections. Two are currently on the books for early 2018, to fill seats vacated by Representatives Trent Franks and Tim Murphy. (A third, to replace ex-Representative John Conyers, has been scheduled to coincide with the regular midterms.)
In normal times, such off-season races would prompt violent yawning even among the voters directly affected, much less the national electorate. But in the Age of Trump, even low-stakes special elections have the potential to
