In the aftermath of Election Day 2024, the conventional wisdom suggested not only that Republicans had entered an era of electoral dominance, but also that Democratic voters were demoralized, disheartened and prepared to withdraw from civic life for a long while. Following a series of 2025 special elections, those assumptions are quickly unraveling.
The latest test came in Arizona, where Democrat Adelita Grijalva won a congressional special election, winning the seat held by her late father. NBC News reported:
Grijalva, a former Pima County supervisor and Tucson school board member, captured Arizona’s 7th Congressional District, which includes Tucson, over Republican Daniel Butierez. She will serve out the remaining 15 months of Rep. Raúl Grijalva’s term after he died in March of complications during cancer treatment.
Once sworn in, Grijalva will be Arizona’s first-ever Latina congresswoman, and she’ll narrow the GOP majority in the U.S. House: Republicans will hold 219 seats to the Democrats’ 214, with two vacancies remaining.
Also of interest was the congresswoman-elect’s margin of victory: Last fall, Kamala Harris carried this Tucson-area district by 22 points, but based on the latest vote tallies, Grijalva appears to have won this week’s special election by nearly 40 points.
That level of Democratic over-performance, which has been common in elections throughout the country this year, is what should worry Republican officials as much as the defeats.
But as Grijalva prepares to take the oath of office on Capitol Hill, there’s another dimension to this that will add to GOP leaders’ headaches.
A bipartisan pair of lawmakers — Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California — have spearheaded a pending discharge petition to force disclosure of the Jeffrey Epstein files, currently being held back by Donald Trump’s Justice Department. Proponents of the effort are currently one member short of 218 signatures, which would trigger a process House Speaker Mike Johnson would be largely powerless to stop. Grijalva has already said she will gladly sign on to the effort, which would give the discharge petition its 218th signature. It’s possible that one (or more) of the four Republicans who’ve already signed on could be pressured to change their minds, upending the process. But if the signatories follow through, the public should expect a vote in early October, and a victory would send the matter to the Senate. Watch this space. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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