This story was originally published on nationaljournal.com on April 14, 2017 The bot­tom didn’t fall out for Re­pub­lic­ans in this week’s House spe­cial elec­tion to re­place newly-min­ted CIA Dir­ect­or Mike Pom­peo, but a yel­low cau­tion light is def­in­itely flash­ing for the GOP. State Treas­urer Ron Estes, the Re­pub­lic­an nom­in­ee in Kan­sas’s 4th Dis­trict, beat civil rights at­tor­ney James Thompson, the Demo­crat­ic stand­ard-bear­er, by 7 points, 53 to 46 per­cent. This wouldn’t be a bad mar­gin if Pom­peo had not won the dis­trict by 31 points last Novem­ber, Pres­id­ent Trump had not car­ried it by 27 points (60 to 33 per­cent), and Mitt Rom­ney not pre­vailed by 26 points (62 to 36 per­cent) in 2012. The 4th Dis­trict has a Cook Polit­ic­al Re­port Par­tis­an Vot­ing In­dex (PVI) of R+15, mean­ing that it tends to vote about 15 points more Re­pub­lic­an than the coun­try as a whole, mak­ing it the 74th-most-Re­pub­lic­an dis­trict in the coun­try. In oth­er words, a Re­pub­lic­an should have won eas­ily there. With an­oth­er spe­cial elec­tion com­ing up Tues­day in Geor­gia’s 6th Dis­trict to re­place new Health and Hu­man

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