CNN data guru Harry Enten has issued a severe warning to President Donald Trump after Republicans were thrashed in a special election in the heart of MAGA country.
Democratic candidate Taylor Rehmet, 33, swept to victory in Texas State Senate District 9, a ruby-red district that Trump handily won by 17 points in 2024, in a state Senate runoff on Saturday.
The first-time candidate’s victory is being heralded as a coup for Democrats and a major red flag for the GOP ahead of this year’s midterms, and CNN numbers wiz Enten thinks Republicans should be very worried.
Speaking on CNN News Central, Enten called out GOP Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who largely dismissed special elections as “quirky” in a post on X, saying he felt Republicans needed only to be “clear-eyed about the political environment heading into the midterms.”
“What happened in Texas 9, it didn’t just swing to the left, it took a rocket ship to the left,” Enten said, suggesting it could be part of a wider trend. “My goodness gracious, the Texas 9 Senate district election margins; this was a district that Donald Trump won by 17 points in 2024.
“For the Democratic candidate in the special election on Saturday—hello, won it by 14 points. That’s an over 30-point shift to the left. Any Republican—unlike Ron DeSantis, who doesn’t take this seriously—they should realize that this is very perilous. They ignore this result at their own peril. Ron DeSantis is right to say, ‘Hey, special elections can be quirky,’ but this ain’t no quirk.”
The victory saw Rehmet win 57 percent of the runoff vote to overcome Republican Leigh Wambsganss, despite her having Trump’s endorsement and what the Texas Tribune described as a “furious funding push in a bid to tilt the election in [her] favor in the final days.”
When it was raised that the storm that gripped much of the U.S. last week could have been to blame for the special election’s result, Enten was unconvinced. “No, that ain’t no ice storm,” he said. “If you ignore this, you’re going to ice yourself out of a majority come the midterms.”
He continued, “So, you know, you see this 31-point shift to the left, right? If this were just one election, that would be one thing. But it’s the slew of special elections that together paint a picture, and it’s a picture that Democrats should love and a picture that Republicans should be really worried about, because what are we talking about here?
“The average 2025-2026 special elections Democrats are doing, get this, 12 points better—12 points better—than Kamala Harris did in 2024. And that was a state special election that happened in Texas on Saturday. If you look at the federal special elections, this 12 points is actually north of 15 points on average,” Enten continued.
Enten said that it paints a gloomy picture for the GOP heading into the midterms.
“So what are we looking at here? Well, take a look at special elections,” Enten said. “Since all the way back in the 2005-2006 cycle, five out of five times the party that outperforms in the special elections goes on to win the U.S. House of Representatives. And this, of course, all paints a picture, right? Texas 9, the special elections, the history of special elections in which Democrats look like they’re in the catbird seat to take back the U.S. House come 2026, November.”
