When then-Rep. Mark Green announced his resignation from Congress in June, his Republican colleagues didn’t seem especially concerned about holding on to his seat in Tennessee. Green represented a district that Donald Trump won by 22 points; it has a Partisan Voter Index score of R+10; and it was widely assumed that neither party would make much effort in the special election, since the outcome seemed a foregone conclusion.
The GOP could sleepwalk its way into a lopsided victory — or so it seemed over the summer.
As Election Day neared, and it became clear that Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn was gaining traction against Republican Matt Van Epps, GOP officials said they hoped to avoid a single-digit margin of victory. Those hopes were soon dashed. MS NOW reported overnight:
After a wave of high-profile election losses across the country last month, the GOP notched a much-needed win Tuesday in a closely watched Tennessee special congressional race, padding the party’s narrow House margin ahead of next year’s midterms.
For Republicans, that’s the good news.
The bad news is, with just about all of the votes counted, Van Epps’ margin of victory was 8.9% — which is significantly smaller than Trump’s performance in the same district last year, and which is obviously not double digits.
Matt Whitlock, a longtime Republican communications professional, wrote via social media, “This is one of the biggest flashing red light warning signs we’ve seen yet for Republicans. If every House district in the country shifted left by this same amount — about 15 points — we would be looking at a blue wave far worse than 2018.”
It’s worth emphasizing why the race turned out to be competitive, despite expectations. It’s not because Van Epps suffered an embarrassing scandal or made a damaging gaffe. It’s also not because Behn, who was arguably well to the left of most of the voters in the district, had a uniquely compelling message.
Rather, the race proved to be far more interesting than widely assumed because there are a whole lot of energized Democratic voters out there — even in a district Trump won by 22 points — and they’re engaged in politics in ways that continue to surprise much of the political world.
If the Tennessee race could be credibly seen as an outlier, GOP officials could be forgiven for looking past the margin and celebrating the win. But therein lies the point: In elections throughout 2025, Democrats have overperformed in ways that should make Republicans quite nervous ahead of the 2026 midterm election cycle.
Around this time a year ago, after Trump won a second term, the conventional wisdom was that Republicans had entered an era of electoral dominance. Trump had successfully realigned the American electorate to put the GOP in a position to control the nation and its future.
The same commentary held that the Democratic Party wasn’t just defeated, it was also small and divided, with a demoralized and disheartened base, filled with voters who were prepared to withdraw from civic life for a long while.
In the weeks and months that followed, there was a near-obsessive focus on Democrats and their “brand.” Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado told NBC News in March that his party’s brand was “problematic.” Around the same time, California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, said the Democratic brand was “toxic.” Days earlier, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania told Politico, “If we don’t get our s— together, then we are going to be in a permanent minority.”
As it turns out, there’s been a lot less talk along these lines lately.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
