Something pretty crazy happened on Tuesday night in Oklahoma: Democrat Cyndi Munson defeated Republican Chip Carter 54-46 in a special election for a state House district that Mitt Romney carried by an overwhelming 61-39 margin in 2012. Republicans have held the seat for over 50 years, and Munson ran for it last year but lost by 13 points. So pretty nuts, huh?
And this isn't some seat in the ancestrally Democratic region known as Little Dixie in Oklahoma's southeast, where Democrats used to regularly win; rather, the 85th House District is in the northern suburbs of Oklahoma City. What's more, it was once occupied by the state's current governor, Republican Mary Fallin. But Democrats have long believed that the demographic trends in OKC have been heading in their direction, and that belief finally bore fruit.
Munson's triumph makes her just the 15th woman and 30th Democrat in the 101-member state House, but it's a start. Remarkably, this is also the third GOP-held state House seat to flip to the Democrats since August, following Leanne Krueger-Braneky's win in Pennsylvania and Taylor Bennet's victory in Georgia. You almost never want to take low-turnout special elections as the harbinger of any trend, but the news certainly hasn't been bad for Democrats—and you'd much rather be the team picking up seats than losing them.