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MAGA Turnout Guru Panics Over GOP Wipeout in Special Election

The Democratic candidate won 75 percent of the vote in a race to fill the late Rep. Gerry Connolly’s seat.

One of MAGA’s most prolific political organizers has warned that a Republican candidate’s crushing defeat in Virginia’s special election could spell disaster for President Donald Trump in the 2026 midterms.

Democrat James Walkinshaw defeated Stewart Whitson by a margin of nearly 3 to 1 in Tuesday’s race to fill the late Rep. Gerry Connolly’s seat.

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Although Walkinshaw, a Fairfax County supervisor and longtime aide to Connolly, was heavily favored to win the deep-blue district, he overperformed by nearly 10 points, winning 75 percent of the vote.

Connolly had historically won with about 66 percent of the vote, or a 2-to-1 margin, while former Vice President Kamala Harris won the district by 34 points in last year’s presidential election, The Washington Post reported.

Scott Presler, a conservative activist and Trump loyalist who runs a political action committee dedicated to registering Republican voters, found the numbers telling. In a social media post sharing the election results, he wrote:

“’Scott, Republicans are going to vote on Election Day.’

“‘Scott, there’s no need to vote early or vote by mail.’

“‘Scott, we need everyone to vote on one single day.’

“Y’all are going to lose 2026 & it’s going to be bad.”

Presler has credited his Early Vote Action PAC with Trump’s 2024 win in Pennsylvania, where his organization focused on registering new Republican voters by targeting groups like truckers, hunters, the Amish, and frat guys, according to CNN.

Tesla CEO and Trump megadonor Elon Musk donated $1 million to the PAC, and Presler promoted his get-out-the-vote efforts on the pro-Trump podcast circuit, appearing on shows hosted by Donald Trump Jr., Steve Bannon, Megyn Kelly, Dan Bongino, Benny Johnson, and Charlie Kirk.

Trump, however, has enacted a series of deeply unpopular policies since taking office in January, and Republicans have lost the party affiliation lead they built up in 2024.

Gallup data published in late July found that 46 percent of U.S. adults identified as Democrats or leaning Democratic, compared to 43 percent who identified as or leaned Republican.

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The president is underwater on all major issues, according to CNN’s data chief Harry Enten, and polls show that rising prices and inflation could cost Republicans control of Congress next year unless Trump manages to turn things around.

In the meantime, Democrats have overperformed in special elections this year by an average of +13 points, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin wrote on social media after Walkinshaw’s victory.

Creating further problems for Trump, Walkinshaw has vowed to sign a bipartisan House resolution directing the Justice Department to release all of its investigative files on the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The convicted sex offender, who was close friends with Trump for years, died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) have tried to block the files’ release, even after members of the president’s base erupted in fury this summer over the administration’s failure to provide new revelations in the case.

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Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) have brought a discharge petition that would circumvent party leaders to bring a bill to the floor.

They need 218 lawmakers to sign it, and Walkinshaw brings the number of backers to 217, The New York Times reported. Later this month, a special election in a solidly Democratic district in Arizona is likely to produce the 218th ‘yes’ vote.

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