'Palpable fear': Lawmaker warns Trump 'worried' ahead of widely watched elections Tuesday
President Donald Trump knows there are important special elections Tuesday — and he's "worried."
That's according to Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who joined CNN's Kaitlan Collins on "The Source" late Monday to talk about his party's expectations ahead of widely-anticipated elections in Wisconsin and Florida.
In Wisconsin, voters will weigh in on a pivotal race between liberal candidate Susan Crawford and conservative Brad Schimel, which will determine the court's ideological sway. The race has seen more than $70 million in TV ads and drew over $20 million from tech billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk.
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Meanwhile, Florida will hold special elections for two U.S. House seats in a chamber where the GOP clings to a razor-thin majority. Democrats Josh Weil and Gay Valimont will square off against Republicans Randy Fine and Jimmy Patronis in ruby-red districts, including one formerly held by Trump's National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.
"Without reading too much into the special elections that are happening tomorrow night, what are you going to be looking for in terms of how voters are feeling, what tea leaves you can be reading, whether it's in Florida or whatnot, what will you be looking for?" asked Collins.
Goldman said he'll pay close attention to the results and expects some "regression to the mean," meaning Democrats in this race will fare comparatively better than the party performed in November.
"But what's interesting to me is the fear — the palpable fear — that the Republicans have and the White House has over that Mike Waltz seat in Florida 6, where Waltz won by 30 points," said Goldman.
Goldman pointed to other recent races that could spell doom for Republicans on Tuesday
In Pennsylvania's state Senate race last week, Democrat James Andrew Malone narrowly defeated Republican Josh Parsons in a special election in a district that Donald Trump won by 15 points. The seat had been held by Republicans for over a century.
Additionally, Trump pulled Rep. Elise Stefanik's (R-NY) nomination for the U.N. ambassador, acknowledging that keeping her in Congress was critical to his agenda.
"It's not because he's worried about what is currently going on in the House, he's worried that she was going to lose her seat that she won by 24 points," Goldman told Collins.
"So, there is a lot of fear and for good reason because Donald Trump's approval ratings on so many of the critical issues are going down. Consumer confidence is at its lowest point in years. He is tanking the economy, and it's going to get worse. Because no businesses are spending. All of these businesses are just holding back because Donald Trump has no strategy. These tariffs are just completely random and arbitrary. Elon Musk is totally random and arbitrary. It's not doing any of the things that Donald Trump said he would do on the campaign," Goldman said.