Republican Ron Estes won a special election in Kansas Tuesday, April 11. However, he won over democrat James Thompson by only around a 5 point margin. This is shocking considering that Trump won the district by 27 points and Pompeo by 31 points just last November and it has been held by a republican for over 20 years. This is being sold by the mainstream media and others as good news for Democrats and bad news for republicans. And that's true on both accounts but it’s not the whole story. The people who this is really good news for is the progressive wing of the democratic party. James Thompson was a Berniecrat and was formally backed by Our Revolution a progressive group started by Bernie Sanders to help elect more progressive candidates. For a long time, there has been a narrative that only moderates can win republican leaning districts and that the best thing for democrats to do is to act more like republicans in competitive districts. However, this result is a significant indicator that this is no longer really true. A progressive candidate with little political experience made an extremely safe republican seat competitive and he didn’t shy away from progressive issues either.

Now obviously this is one race and there are other factors. Kansas has a deeply unpopular republican governor who has destroyed the state's economy and Ron Estes served as the state's treasurer during this time. Ron Estes also ran a relatively poor campaign assuming that he would win the deeply republican district without doing any work. And finally the dynamic works a little differently during a special election that during normal ones with get out the vote efforts being even more important as many voters may not even realize that an election is happening. Thankfully we will get more chances in upcoming special elections and then the midterm election in 2018. If performances like James Thompson’s keep happening that is a good sign for not just for democrats but for progressive democrats.