So much for suspense. After across-the-board wins in November’s elections, Democrats had fantasies of a surprise upset in last night’s special election for Tennessee’s Seventh US House district, which includes parts of Nashville and the surrounding suburbs. While that district went for Donald Trump by 22 points in 2024, polls showed a tightening race between Republican Matt Van Epps and Democrat Aftyn Behn. Yet, barely an hour after polls closed, analysts gave the race to Van Epps, who seems to have won by about nine points.

This race offers some tea leaves heading into next year’s midterms. The fact that Behn was able to improve so much on Kamala Harris’s margins indicates a potential Republican vulnerability. The GOP won the “popular vote” for the House by just under three points in 2024, so a uniform 13-point swing would give Democrats a hefty national lead — one that even some of the most aggressive Republican gerrymanders might not be able to block.

Republicans can point to structural factors which might mitigate this slip in their performance. Special elections tend to favour the high-propensity, highly-credentialed voters who now form the base of the Democratic Party, so a 13-point fall-off might not translate to next November. This election also provides some evidence that Trump can, to some extent, still drive turnout. Over the past couple of weeks, national Republicans — including the President himself — pounded the drum about this race, and it looks like their supporters turned out on election day. But that high turnout also means that this special election was not necessarily that “special”; about as many people voted in it as cast ballots in the November 2022 midterm election in the district.

Beyond tactics, this election also offers a preview of a potential clash between culture and affordability in 2026. In ads, Republicans assailed Behn’s past statements on defunding the police, gender, and other cultural issues, in addition to accusing her of wanting to raise taxes. Behn instead centred much of her political messaging on affordability and paying for healthcare. Given voter uncertainty about the economy, that affordability messaging likely received some traction, but Behn’s positions on cultural issues might have limited her ability to make the most of economics. A self-described “very radical person”, she was clearly out of step with much of the district.

That has a bearing on Democratic strategy heading into 2026. The Democratic grassroots has grown increasingly disenchanted with the party’s leadership class, and progressive insurgents are mobilising in primaries across the country. Core Democratic constituencies might thrill at the idea of full-spectrum Leftism, so those insurgents could see outsized performances in both primaries and general elections in party strongholds. But that strength in progressive citadels could hamper the ability of Democrats to grow their coalition where they need it most. Tellingly, Behn most outperformed Kamala Harris in Davis County, the home of Nashville. However, she only modestly improved on Harris’s margins in Wayne County and other rural areas. Progressive cultural politics, evidently, is still electoral poison in many small towns.

Republicans might be publicly celebrating now, but — before the election — some GOP insiders were saying that a single-digit win would cause them to become “unhinged”. It would be a huge political gamble for Republicans to rely on Democratic primary voters to gift-wrap all tipping-point House seats with “very radical” Democratic nominees. If the party cannot come up with a strong policy programme on affordability, including on housing and healthcare, it risks further defections from working-class voters and swing suburbanites. For Republicans to play on culture, they need to have a message on economics.

---

Fred Bauer is a writer from New England.

fredbauerblog

---