Democrats are winning special elections this year. Just not the ones most people are paying attention to. In a party desperate for victories, Democratic candidates are finding the most success in little-noticed state legislative races. They’ve already won four seats previously under Republican control, some of them in battleground districts that split evenly between President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Party leaders say it’s a sign that they are benefitting from a broad backlash to the Republican president, one that failed to lift a quartet of special election U.S. House candidates — including Jon Ossoff in Georgia or Rob Quist in Montana — to victories of their own. The party in control of the White House has lost seats in state legislatures in 27 of the last 29 midterm elections.
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