In the first electoral test of President Donald Trump’s and the Republican Party’s “Make America Great Again” agenda since November, Republicans have bolstered their narrow majority in the House of Representatives but failed to secure a crucial seat on a state supreme court. Tuesday night, Republicans Randy Fine and Jimmy Patronis won special elections in Florida to represent the Sunshine State in the House, but the Trump-aligned Brad Schimel lost his bid for a spot on Wisconsin’s supreme court.

Fine and Patronis both won special elections in Florida’s 6th and 1st Congressional Districts, respectively. Fine will now occupy the House seat last filled by Mike Waltz, who now serves as the president’s national security advisor, while Patronis will take the seat vacated by Matt Gaetz, who left the House when he was nominated to serve as Trump’s U.S. attorney general before quickly withdrawing his name from consideration for the role.

While the victories buoy the slim Republican House majority from 218 to 220 (against the Democrats’ 213), both Fine and Patronis secured a smaller share of the votes than was anticipated based on Republicans’ performance in the relevant districts in November. Fine earned 56.7% of the vote in his district, trailing the 66.5% Waltz garnered in November. Likewise, Patronis was elected with 56.9% of the vote in his district, as opposed to the 66% won by Gaetz last year. Trump, meanwhile, outperformed both Waltz and Gaetz in those districts last year, leaving the candidates he endorsed for the special election far behind.

Meanwhile, Democrat-backed Susan Crawford won a seat on Wisconsin’s supreme court, defeating the Trump-aligned Schimel. The court currently has a four-to-three left-leaning majority, which was jeopardized when Judge Ann Walsh Bradley decided to retire. The race for the open judicial seat quickly became the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history, with Democrat mega-donors like Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and leftist billionaire George Soros backing Crawford and tech billionaire Elon Musk throwing his weight behind Schimel. Campaign spending neared $100 million, roughly double the amount spent on 2023’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race, which set the record at the time for the most expensive judicial contest in U.S. history. Ultimately, Crawford’s campaign outspent Schimel’s.

Crawford won 55% of the vote while Schimel won 45%, although voter turnout stood at only about 52%. In all counties, even ones in which Schimel won, voters made a significant shift leftward compared to the 2024 election results, sometimes by as much as 17 percentage points.

FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter shared his analysis of the off-year elections with The Washington Stand. “Last night’s results were, at best, mixed for Republicans. While they can hang their hat on two victories in special elections in Florida, they did not win by the margins they should have given the numerical advantage they enjoy in registered voters in those districts,” he said. “In Wisconsin, despite a significant increase in ground game and investment from the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court race, Republicans lost by 10 points, and now the Wisconsin Supreme Court will have a durable liberal majority for years to come.”

“Democrats vastly outspent Republicans in the Florida special elections six-to-one in Florida’s 1st Congressional District and nine-to-one in Florida’s 6th Congressional District, and liberal Susan Crawford outspent conservative Brad Schimel in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election two to one,” Carpenter observed. He added, “As much as we might not like it, the simple fact is the campaign that raises the most money is most able to get their message in front of voters. In open races, where an incumbent is not running — as was the case in last night’s elections — this is often an advantage that is impossible to overcome in political campaigns.”

“Some good news was the success of a ballot initiative in Wisconsin to enshrine in the state constitution the state’s laws requiring voters to present a photo ID before voting,” Carpenter noted. The constitutional amendment was approved by 62.8% of Wisconsin voters, garnering more support across the state than Crawford’s supreme court bid. All but two counties, Milwaukee and Dane, voted yes on the amendment, most of them by significant margins: 41 out of Wisconsin’s 72 counties approved the amendment with over 70% of the vote. Carpenter observed, “Wisconsin has some of — if not the best voter ID laws in the country, and now that they are in the state constitution it will be much more difficult for the liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court to nullify them.”

However, Carpenter also pointed out the numerical discrepancy between the supreme court race and the constitutional amendment. “This amendment prevailed by 27 points, suggesting there were many Wisconsin voters who approved of the amendment and voted for Crawford — who would most likely support undermining the state’s election integrity laws, including voter ID. This suggests that Republicans failed to make the case that Crawford would be bad for election integrity, something that Wisconsin voters care deeply about as evidenced by the passage of the voter ID amendment.”

Carpenter also addressed the “big takeaway” from Tuesday night’s elections and what Republicans can learn from them. “Despite historic disapproval ratings of Democrats in Washington, the Democratic base is still incredibly energized. They are not just vandalizing Teslas, they are itching to vote as well,” he said. Carpenter advised, “The Republican Party can assuage their fears slightly with the knowledge that this is not ahistorical: typically, the party out of power performs well in low-turnout elections in odd-years and midterms.” However, he noted that Republicans “need to begin figuring out how they can motivate voters to show up in these important elections without President Trump at the top of the ticket.”

“I think it’s clear the Republican Party does not have the same appeal to voters as President Trump does. For sure, he is a unique figure in American politics, able to make headlines effortlessly, but Republicans will have to figure out how the party can compete when Trump is not on the ballot,” Carpenter suggested. He cautioned, “They don’t have a year to figure this out ahead of the 2026 midterms — Republicans are already announcing their candidacy for 2026 — they need to begin in earnest now figuring out how to turn Trump voters into Republican voters.”