Democrats have gained a net 13 state legislative seats in special elections since January 2025 — all flipped from Republican to Democratic control — while Republicans have not flipped any seats in the other direction during President Donald Trump's (R) second term.
The pace is comparable to Trump's first term: Democrats gained a net 11 seats in 2017 special elections and another eight in 2018 special elections.
There were 89 districts where a Democrat appeared on both the special election ballot and the previous general election ballot, and 84 districts where a Republican did the same. Democratic candidates retained an average of 38% of their party's previous general election vote total; Republican candidates retained an average of 29% — a gap of roughly 10 percentage points. Because special elections typically draw far lower turnout than general elections, this comparison measures how much of each party's prior support showed up.
