The 8 Elections to Watch This January
To kick off this major election year, Bolts this month is tracking a special election for Congress in Texas, and contests for state legislatures across seven states.
Welcome to 2026, a busy election cycle that’ll determine control of Congress, thousands of prosecutors and sheriffs, and the governors of most states.
That’s all on the horizon, though. Kicking off the new year are special elections for Congress and state legislatures that’ll test whether Democrats keep up their momentum from 2025.
Enter Bolts’ guide to eight elections to watch in January.
In Virginia, Democrats want to replenish their ranks in time for the start of the legislative session. They’re also eying several upsets for state Houses in the South, including South Carolina, Alabama, and Texas. The GOP, meanwhile, has a shot to flip its first state legislative seat anywhere since 2024.
Also on the menu, some voters in Texas, Arkansas, and Florida are choosing representatives after each of their governors forced monthslong delays for filling vacant seats, sparking lawsuits to force them to call these contests and bringing scrutiny to some governors’ power to game the timing of elections.
This guide starts on Jan. 6 with general elections in South Carolina and Virginia, plus an Arkansas primary where timing proved controversial. The following week, watch local contests in Alabama, Connecticut, and Florida. Finally, Bolts is tracking two runoffs in Texas—including the resolution of a congressional race for a seat that’s been vacant since March—on Jan. 31.
As always, this guide is just our selection of key races to monitor. It’s not an exhaustive list of all elections in January; for instance, Bolts is not including several legislative special elections for seats in Georgia, Minnesota, and Virginia, that lean very heavily Democratic or Republican.
And return on and after each Election Day; we’ll update this page as the results are known.
Want updates on these races?
Sign up for our newsletter and stay on top of key races.
Support us
Bolts is a non-profit newsroom that relies on donations, and it takes resources to produce this work. If you appreciate our value, become a monthly donor or make a contribution.
Jan. 6: Virginia
Special election in the 15th Senate district
| Virginia Democrats have a busy agenda once the legislative session starts on Jan. 14, including constitutional amendments to protect abortion rights, expand voting rights restoration, enshrine same-sex marriage, and redistrict the state. Republican John Thomas is running to join the state Senate right before the session starts so he can vote against all four measures. Ordinarily, this special election would not warrant much attention: This staunchly blue district, in the Richmond region, voted for Kamala Harris by nearly 30 points in 2024, so Democratic nominee Mike Jones is heavily favored over Thomas. But Democrats’ narrow margin in the chamber makes it worth keeping an eye on. |
| The winner will replace Ghazala Hashmi, who won the lieutenant governor’s race in November and so resigned from the Senate, where Democrats are up by just 21-19. Party leaders scheduled a special election right after the holidays, as early as they could to fill the vacancy, because her empty seat leaves Democrats with only a 20-19 edge, putting them at the mercy of a single defection on any bill. But they’ll have some room to breathe if it goes back to 21-19 (when Senate votes end in a tie, the lieutenant governor gets to break it). Virginia Democrats, who already have a huge majority in the state House, are also defending numerous staunchly blue House districts in special elections in early January, including Jones’ seat and those of multiple lawmakers who are joining the new administration. |
| Result: Jones, the Democrat, wins the Senate special election. |
Jan. 6: South Carolina
Special election in the 98th House district
| In 2025, Democrats flipped 21 percent of all GOP legislative seats in play. Can they start 2026 by gaining a seat at the earliest possible opportunity? South Carolina is holding a special election to replace Chris Murphy, a longtime GOP lawmaker who announced his resignation in August, in a district Trump carried by only seven percentage points in 2024. |
| Democrats are hopeful that their nominee Sonja Ogletree Satani, who lost to Murphy in 2024, can upset Republican nominee Greg Ford. Both candidates are Air Force veterans who’ve created businesses in the Charleston area, where the district is located. While a win by Ogletree Satani would boost Democrats’ morale, it wouldn’t change the GOP supermajority in the chamber. But The State stresses how her win would be a boon for gender representation; South Carolina’s legislature, where just 13 percent of lawmakers are women, is among the most male-dominated in the nation, second only to West Virginia. |
| Result: Ford, the Republican, won by 21 votes. |
Jan. 6: Arkansas
Special Election in the 70th House District (Primary)
| This Arkansas vacancy, a rare GOP-held seat that Kamala Harris carried in the fall of 2024, looks like a golden opportunity for a Democratic pick-up. But Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican, tried to delay a special election. While the incumbent resigned in late September, Huckabee Sanders initially called an election to replace him in June, which would have left the district without any representation throughout the 2026 session. Democrats sued and got a court to order the contest rescheduled. As a result, the process will kick off with primaries on Jan. 6. Democrats will select Alex Holladay or Cordelia Smith-Johnson to face Republican Bryan Renshaw in March. |
| Results: Holladay wins the primary, and will face Renshaw next. |
Jan. 13: Florida
Special election in the 87th House District (primary)
| The Arkansas court’s ruling was noteworthy given how frequently governors keep vacant seats empty for months when it could benefit their party: Also in January, Florida is hosting several primaries for legislative districts where Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has faced blowback for similar delays. Democrat Emily Gregory, who is running to flip the 87th House district, sued DeSantis in early October to speed up his timeline; in late October, two months after the vacancy arose, the governor finally set a date for her election, and three others, with primaries on Jan. 13. The same dynamic is at play in Texas, which is deciding a congressional seat vacant since early March (see below). |
| Results: Democrat Emily Gregory and republican Jon Maples win the 87th district primaries, and will face off in March. |
Jan. 13: Connecticut
Special Election In the 139th House district
| The GOP’s best opportunity to gain a seat in January is happening in a special election occasioned by the death of Kevin Ryan, a Democrat who won this seat by nine points in 2024. Harris carried the district by a similar margin in the presidential race. Now Democrat Larry Pemberton, treasurer of the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, faces Republican businessman Brandon Sabbag. He would be the first recognized member of a Connecticut tribe in the legislature, according to the Connecticut Mirror. Much like in South Carolina (see above), the result won’t change the chamber’s balance of power; Democrats are sure to keep their supermajority in the House. (On Jan. 6, Connecticut Democrats are also defending the very staunchly blue 25th House district. Note that the unlikely scenario in which the GOP scores upsets in the 25th and 139th districts would break the Democratic supermajority.) |
| Result: Pemberton wins in the 139th district. (Democrats also hold the 25th district.) |
Jan. 13: Alabama
Special election in the 63rd House district
| Alabama is a very difficult state for Democrats but the party has a high-profile candidate for governor this year in Doug Jones, the former U.S. Senator. They have an early test of whether they’re gaining enough ground with a special election to replace Cynthia Almond, a Republican who resigned last spring to join the state’s Public Service Commission. Trump won the district by 17 points in 2024, and that makes Norman Crow, a GOP member of the Tuscaloosa city council, the clear favorite against Democrat Judith Taylor, the chair of the local Democratic Party. Still, Jones carried this area in his U.S. Senate upset back in 2017. Regardless, the result won’t affect the GOP’s massive dominance ahead of the 2026 legislative session. Among issues likely to emerge in the session are the state’s beleaguered parole system—reform efforts keep stalling in the legislature, as Bolts reported last spring—and GOP officials’ push to expand executions in the state. |
| Result: Crow wins. |
Jan. 31: Texas
Special election in the 18th congressional district
| Republican Governor Greg Abbott will have kneecapped this district’s next representative on both ends of their term. After Democratic U.S. Representative Sylvester Turner died in early March, Abbott dragged his feet for months before finally ordering a special election. As a result, the seat will have stayed vacant for nearly a whole calendar year. Abbott also signed into law last summer a new GOP gerrymander that transformed the Houston-area district for the midterms. Whoever wins on Jan. 31 will have just five weeks before a Democratic primary, where they’ll face U.S. Representative Al Green in a new district after Green, a 20-year incumbent, was gerrymandered out of his long-held seat. Still, two Democratic candidates—former Houston City Councilmember Amanda Edwards and Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee—are campaigning hard in this runoff, even as they’ve both denounced Abbott’s decisions. The two were close in the preliminary round on Nov. 4, while the top Republican received just six percent. |
| Result: Menefee wins. |
Special election in the 9th Senate district
| Leigh Wambsganss is a conservative activist who helped lead the far-right efforts to take over Texas school boards, including running a PAC that championed candidates who sponsored book bans and restricted teachings about race and books with LGBTQ+ characters. Now she is looking to join the legislature, and she is favored in this special election for a red-leaning Senate district that voted for Trump by 17 percentage points. But Democrat Taylor Rehmet, a union leader, has mounted a surprisingly robust campaign. In the preliminary round on Nov. 4, Rehmet received 47 percent, ahead of Wambsganss and her 36 percent. Former Southlake Mayor John Huffman, a Republican, received 16 percent. To pull off the upset, Rehmet will now need an even bigger overperformance. The special election won’t alter the balance in the chamber (the GOP will keep a majority regardless), plus there is no regular legislative session planned this year. But Texas Democrats are eager for any sign of life after their disappointing setbacks in 2024. |
| Result: Rehmet wins, and does so easily. |