YOU MEAN… FOR DEMOCRATS? There’s actually some good news buried in the four special election losses.

So where is the pony? It comes from data provided by election guru David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, using something called the Partisan Vote Index, basically a way of determining how much any congressional district leans toward one party or the other.

Wasserman looked at the four special congressional elections we have had since Trump became President — the two on Tuesday, along with ones in Kansas and Montana, all four strongly Republican-leaning. Wasserman looked at the generic vote for Democrats in each district, what you would expect without special circumstances. They are 35% in Kansas 4, 39% in Montana, 42% in the Georgia 6th district and 41% in South Carolina 5. The actual results show Democratic candidates in these districts outdistancing the “expected” vote by 12%, 8%, 6% and 7%, respectively — an average outperformance of 8 points.

There are many Republican-held seats without the large cushion that the party had in these four contests — meaning that if those results help up in the next midterm election, Democrats would be in a position to win enough seats to take back a majority in the House. As Wasserman put it, these elections expand the map of possible winnable contests for Democrats in 2018, not contract it.

If $23 million wasn’t enough to beat a milquetoast Republican in a district barely won by Trump, where are the Democrats going to find the money to do better in tougher districts?