Another Tuesday, another Democratic red-to-blue flip in a state legislative special election.
Specifically, it’s Democrats’ 38th pickup in a statehouse contest this cycle.
Tonight’s win comes in the New Hampshire House, where Democrat Philip Spagnuolo won a special election in House District Belknap-3, 54-46 percent. This marks a 19-point swing from Trump’s performance in this district in 2016; he won this district by a 54-41 margin. This is the fifth seat Democrats have flipped in the New Hampshire House this cycle, and it’s Democrats’ ninth win of the state’s 11 special elections.
Spagnuolo is a founding member of a community recovery center and a substance abuse recovery coach, and improving New Hampshire’s response to the opioid crisis is a high priority for him. However, voting rights was the main issue motivating his support from the left; Let America Vote spent $1,000 on digital ads for the Democrat, and America Votes Action Fund-New Hampshire spent $929 on pro-Spagnuolo direct mail.
This outside spending may have helped counter Republicans’ registration edge in this Laconia-based seat, where they outnumber Democrats 36-25 percent, with undeclared voters making up 39 percent of the city’s electorate. But Republicans fought to keep this seat red, even deploying Republican Gov. Chris Sununu to campaign on the GOP candidate’s behalf.
This New Hampshire race was the 80th state legislative special election of the cycle, and the data emerging from these contests continues to bring nothing but bad news for Republicans. Unless they can pull off a drastic turnaround in the eight remaining months of the cycle, the GOP is facing a world of hurt at every level of the ballot in November.
