Lots of hay being made over today’s special election result in Wisconsin. Special elections are special in many ways – because they are so few and they are not aligned with other elections, they should not be seen as representative of how other elections might go. Because turnout is typically much lower for special elections than even for off-year elections, they favor Republican candidates more than any other type of election. But still, here’s this result compared against the other three special elections with candidates from both parties that were decided today.

WI-SD10 27 pt swing to Democrats (D pickup)
IA-HD06 18 pt swing to Democrats (R hold)
SC-HD99 13 pt swing to Democrats (R hold)
WI-AD58 25 pt swing to Democrats (R hold)

Those numbers are so big, especially considering the general Republican advantage in special elections, that I’m having trouble following my own advice to ignore them. However, there’s one extra bit of doom and gloom in the data to consider–the biggest Democratic gains were in the reddest districts. In other words, swing districts swung less than safe ones. So theoretically, a national 12-point swing to the Democrats could result in no change, or even Republicans gaining seats, if most of that swing is absorbed in districts so red that it doesn’t change the outcome of the election.