After kicking off in March, the takes a break this month before returning with a vengeance in May.
But that doesn’t mean there’s a dearth of consequential elections in April.
Special U.S. House contests in Georgia and New Jersey, a state Supreme Court election in battleground Wisconsin, and a Virginia referendum that is the latest face-off between President and Republicans and Democrats in the high-stakes congressional redistricting wars â with the House majority on the line â will all draw national attention this month.
Here’s a closer look at the four ballot box showdowns.
Trump-backed Republican House candidate Clay Fuller faces off with Democratic candidate Shawn Harris to fill a vacant in solidly red northwest Georgia that was once held by MAGA firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Harris, a retired brigadier general and cattle farmer, and Fuller, a local prosecutor and Air National Guard member, were the top two finishers in a field of 17 candidates, including 12 Republicans, in the early March special election. With no candidate topping 50%, Harris and Fuller advanced to a runoff.
The special election comes as Republicans cling to a razor-thin 218â214 majority in the House. That means the GOP cannot afford any surprises or allow Democrats to pull an upset in a district that extends from Atlanta’s northwest exurbs to with Alabama and northern border with Tennessee, which Trump carried by 37 points in his 2024 presidential victory.
Fuller, who is expected to consolidate the Republican vote that was divided in the first round, is considered the clear frontrunner in the race. But if Harris holds Fuller’s margin to the mid-teens or less, national Democrats will argue the election is the latest in the 14 months since Trump returned to the White House in which they’ve overperformed.
The congressional seat was left vacant when Greene stepped down at the beginning of January. Greene quit Congress with a year left in her term, after a very public falling out with Trump mostly over her push to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
While officially a non-partisan contest, state Supreme Court elections in the Midwestern battleground have become extremely partisan in recent years.
With the court’s majority on the line in last year’s contests, outside money poured in and out-of-state door knockers blanketed Wisconsin. One of the biggest spenders was Trump ally , who headlined a rally days before the election and donned a cheesehead hat worn by fans of the Green Bay Packers.
Democrats won that election by a larger-than-expected margin and currently hold a 4-3 majority on .
With a conservative justice retiring, the majority isn’t at stake in this year’s election, although liberals with a win could expand their majority to 5-2.
But if the conservative candidate wins, or keeps it close, the GOP may claim a moral victory.
Republican Joe Hathaway, a local mayor, is hoping to pull off an upset in the special election to fill the congressional seat left vacant after now-Gov. stepped down after winning last November’s gubernatorial election.
Hathaway, who was unopposed in February’s primary, faces off in the election against Democrat Analilia Mejia, a progressive organizer backed by left-wing champions Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Mejia pulled off an upset, narrowly edging out front-runner former Rep. Tom Malinowski in a field of 11 candidates. The face-off was one of the latest between progressives and more mainstream Democrats.
The 11th Congressional District in northern ‘s New York City suburbs was once the kind of seat where Republicans excelled at the ballot box. Hathaway, who has pointed out his differences with Trump, is the type of Republican who could attract crossover voters.
Add in that Mejia may be too far to the left for some voters in the district, and there’s a chance for some intrigue on Election D
