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Louisiana Democrat Chasity Verret Martinez won a decisive victory Saturday in a special election for a state House seat in a district President Donald Trump carried by double digits in 2024, delivering another warning sign for Republicans amid a string of Democratic overperformances in special elections.
Martinez defeated Republican Brad Daigle by a wide margin, capturing 62% of the vote to Daigle’s 38%, according to unofficial results from the Louisiana secretary of state.
Trump won the district by 13 points in the 2024 presidential election and carried it three times overall, leading Republicans to view the race as a prime pickup opportunity. Instead, Martinez’s win represented a 37-point swing from last year’s presidential results.
Seat remains Democratic, but margin raises alarms
The election was triggered after the district’s former representative, a Democrat, was appointed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry to serve as a commissioner in the state Department of Alcohol & Tobacco.
While the seat did not flip parties, Republicans had aggressively targeted the race given the district’s recent federal voting history. Democrats have long held the seat at the state and local levels, but the scale of Martinez’s victory exceeded expectations.
Martinez, a former Iberville Parish councilwoman, centered her campaign on affordability and local economic issues. She was outspent by Republicans by roughly three to one.
Part of a broader special-election trend
Martinez’s victory follows a notable Democratic win last week in Texas, where Democrat Taylor Rehmet flipped a state Senate seat in the largest Republican county in the country. That district had been held by the GOP for more than 40 years and was carried by Trump by 17 points in 2024. Rehmet won by 14 points.
Republicans have yet to notch a legislative special election pickup during Trump’s second term. Since he returned to office, Democrats have flipped eight previously Republican-held legislative districts nationwide.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to state legislatures, said Republicans “squandered their first flip opportunity in an election they should’ve had in the bag.”
National Democrats seize on result
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin praised Martinez’s campaign in a statement Sunday, saying she focused on issues that resonate with voters.
“Chasity Verret Martinez ran an exceptional campaign focused on solutions to the issues that families care most about,” Martin said, pointing to rising costs and the risk of rural hospital closures in Louisiana. He blamed those pressures on Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and state Republicans.
Democrats have increasingly pointed to special election results as evidence that voter sentiment is shifting ahead of the 2026 midterms, particularly in districts that strongly supported Trump just months earlier.
