Be afraid of the president, Gus Bilirakis. Be very afraid

For a candidate who hasn't appeared on a ballot yet, Chris Hunter is on a bit of a roll.

He won in Alabama in December, and appears to have won again in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Mind you, those victories were symbolic rather than literal for Hunter, but they should not be blindly dismissed.

You see, Hunter is the former federal prosecutor running as a Democrat against Gus Bilirakis in a Republican-leaning congressional race on the North Suncoast.

Which sounds a lot like former prosecutors and Democrats Conor Lamb (Pennsylvania) and Doug Jones (Alabama) who stunned GOP strongholds with their performances in recent special elections.

So, is this the beginning of a Democratic wave in November's midterm elections?

And do victories by Lamb and Jones validate Hunter's decision to walk away from his job at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa to launch a political career in an area that has been dominated by Bilirakis and his father, Mike, for 36 consecutive years?

"I felt this way before Doug won and long before Conor won, so I'm reluctant to say those victories validate my feelings,'' Hunter said Wednesday.

"I think people are just exhausted. I think that's the best way to interpret Conor's victory. I think people are taking a deep breath and saying, 'My gosh, enough is enough.' For people who have jobs to do and families to feed, the last year and a half have been exhausting. They want to end this circus that seems to have a new act every single day. I don't think it's about Republicans, and I don't think it's about Democrats. It's about Americans who want to elect real leaders.''

It's easy to draw the comparisons, but there are some differences.

In the Alabama Senate race, Jones drew a deeply flawed candidate in Roy Moore. And in Pennsylvania, where Lamb has declared victory but a recount may be in the works, there was no incumbent.

Hunter, on the other hand, will be running against a candidate who has won by 25 points or more in his last five elections, including one year when he ran unopposed.

Even so, I might rather be in Hunter's shoes than Bilirakis' today.

Being a Republican with Donald Trump in the White House is not a terribly comfortable position, and Bilirakis has responded by mostly pretending the president is a complete stranger.

Maybe that will work for him in November, but the evidence is not terribly encouraging so far. With the president's approval ratings at historic lows, Democrats have performed better than anticipated in special elections. They were competitive in South Carolina, Kansas and Montana -- in districts where Trump had coasted to victory -- and won in Pennsylvania and Alabama.

And it's hard to interpret the results in Pennsylvania Tuesday night as anything other than a repudiation of the president's first 16 months in office. Trump won that district by 21 points, and yet Lamb made up the entire difference and is now clinging to a 600-vote lead.

The numbers are similar in Florida's District 12. Trump outperformed Hillary Clinton by 18.6 points, making the district far more Republican than the overall numbers in the state. But that district was closer in the previous two presidential elections -- 7.5 points for Mitt Romney, and 3.8 points for John McCain -- which is an indication the 2016 numbers might have been more about Clinton.

Bilirakis was not available for comment Wednesday, but his office dismissed the Pennsylvania results as inconsequential.

"Gus knows his district, and he cares about connecting with his constituents,'' said spokeswoman Summer Robertson. "With all due respect, that is much more important and relevant than what happened in an open seat in Pennsylvania.''

That's absolutely true. Pennsylvania voters have nothing to do with Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough voters.

But the president, presumably, will still be in office come November. And I'm betting that will have something to do with how people in Tampa Bay vote.