Republican Matt Van Epps Holds On to Win the Tennessee 7 Special Election, But It's A Much Closer Race Than We'd've Hoped

Trump won the district by 22 points in 2024.

Van Epps won by about nine points.

The Democrats are hysterical and frantic and absolutely energized to kill us at the polls -- and maybe in real life too.

And too many Republicans, and especially too many Trump supporters, are content with the 2024 win and don't really care about the Democrats winning Congress back and impeaching Trump in the first month of 2026.

Republicans won Tuesday's special election in Tennessee. But instead of celebrating, many are dreading what it means about the midterms.

Republican Rep.-elect Matt Van Epps' roughly nine point win marks a massive shift toward Democrats from 2024, when President Donald Trump carried the district by 22 points. That double digit swing -- on the heels of crushing losses in off-year elections in November -- could be a harbinger of what House Republicans will face in the midterms next year, members and strategists warned, as they seek to hold on to their narrow control of the chamber.

"Tonight is a sign that 2026 is going to be a bitch of an election cycle," said one House Republican, granted anonymity to speak candidly. "Republicans can survive if we play team and the Trump administration officials play smart. Neither is certain."

Democrat Aftyn Behn's overperformance in the Tennessee special election -- which attracted millions of dollars in spending and national attention in its final days -- continues a trend of concerning electoral results for the GOP. Earlier this year, Democrats saw big overperformances in losses in other special elections in deep-red seats, and last month they swept a slate of critical off-year elections, including gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey.

In the wake of those victories, some Republicans urged the White House to retool its political message to better engage moderate voters and independents who broke for Trump in the presidential election.

"I'm glad we won. But the GOP should not ignore the Virginia, New Jersey and Tennessee elections," Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who is retiring from his swingy Omaha-based district, said. "We must reach swing voters. America wants some normalcy."

Gerrymandering is becoming a very tricky thing for us. When you gerrymander to increase the number of seats you could win, you necessarily increase the number of seats you can lose. There's no way around that. Gerrymandering for numbers involves drawing districts which have scant majorities of your voters. You spread your voters around so that you can win with thin margins in as many districts as possible.

But doing this means that in a bad year, you lose many of those districts you've drawn to have thin margins. Your deliberately-thin margin of victory turns into a loss.

Does that mean we shouldn't redistrict? No, because control of the House is a very binary thing. It kind of doesn't matter if you lose the House by ten seats or thirty seats. Either way, you have lost the power to bring bills in for a vote, or block them from a vote, and of course Democrats are intensely partisan hive-mind bug people who will all vote in lockstep so even a majority of two seats for the Democrats is a guaranteed majority in every important vote. There are effectively no more swing districts or moderate Congressmen... except on the GOP side.

But given our performance so far, I think it's now guaranteed that we will lose the House by thirty seats, unless something changes bigly, and I don't know what that could be.

Trump has attracted new voters, yes, but these voters... don't really vote.

Meanwhile, a new poll released by the Democrats shows that Ken Paxton is leading shameless RINO traitor John Cornyn.

InteractivePolls @IAPolls2022

TEXAS SENATE GOP PRIMARY POLL

Ken Paxton - 32%
Wesley Hunt - 22%
John Cornyn - 22%
Not sure - 24%
----
Paxton vs Cornyn
Paxton - 44%
Cornyn - 34%
Not sure - 22%
--
Hunt vs Cornyn
Hunt - 45%
Cornyn - 28%
Not sure - 27%
----
Fav-unfav
Hunt: 34-14 (+20)
Paxton: 48-35 (+13)
Cornyn: 29-44 (-15)
----
• PPP for Senate Majority PAC (Dem)
• 12/1-2 | 527 LV

Why did the Democrats release this poll? PPP is a bad polling outfit that pumps out crap polls, so we shouldn't put much stock in this poll either way; but why are the Democrats releasing it? Presumably they want to make trouble and influence the primary vote, but influence it how?

Are they trying to gin up support for Cornyn, the liberal? Or are they trying to depress his voters in the belief that Ken Paxton, the actual conservative, would be easier for Jasmine Ratchet to defeat in the general election?

I don't know. Neither seem like very compelling ops to me.

But Cornyn is claiming the poll is rigged by Democrats to hurt him.

Cornyn has led several recent polls; his campaign adviser Matt Mackowiak said the incumbent senator will win and that "Democrats are desperate to run against fatally flawed homewrecker Ken Paxton and cost the GOP a critically valuable Senate seat and as much as $200M in the general election."

Lauren French, a Senate Majority PAC spokeswoman, called that response "weak, half-hearted spin."

Robby Starbuck
@robbystarbuck

Some will be mad at me for this but I say it out of love for our country... We won the TN special election by less than we should have.

If you've been to this area, you know it should have been a blowout. And this isn't a knock on Matt Van Epps. He had lower name ID to begin with and did a good job pulling it out. A lesser candidate would have made it a real nail biter.

So why was it close? Many voters are apathetic and have very little enthusiasm on our side. Why? They think our majority in Congress is failing them due to weak leadership, bad priorities & inconsistent messaging.

Before I go further, I don't say this to punch my own side for fun. I don't do that. I say this because I want us to dominate for many years to come. Major time was wasted this year that should have been spent IN SESSION solving problems.

We need to right the ship or voters will sink our ship in 2026. Enthusiasm from 2024 is gone. The blind trust is gone. They want action. The people in Congress need to realize that they aren't Trump and he isn't there to carry them on the ballot in 2026. They need to deliver now. And even then we likely have to run '26 like a Presidential election with Trump going around the country.

I see it on the ground. Voters want to know when promises are going to be kept by Congress. They want a Congress that works as much as they do. They want the agenda they voted for in 2024 passed into law. They want the deep state held accountable. They want transparency. They want full focus on domestic issues instead of foreign issues. They want Congress to improve their lives. They want them to stop trading stocks. And they want to know what the hell Congress is actually doing for them. If our GOP majority doesn't deliver, many of these people won't vote, no matter how much they hate Democrats.

I'm hearing from people who I'd describe as the Trumpiest people I met from 2016-2024 who straight up won't vote in 2026 unless Congress changes to a fighting spirit this year and stacks wins on the board. These people have lost faith and feel like everything is rigged by uniparty puppets for special interests.

Doesn't matter what I tell these people. I can't make most of them vote again. Neither can any other big social media account. Only ACTION from electeds will move them at this point to feel that the incumbents deserve their vote. This is exclusively a right wing problem. The left is enthusiastic just about hating us. That animates their base by itself.

And many of the good things that have happened in Congress this year aren't even reaching the ears or eyeballs of average voters because the messaging is soft and inconsistent. Everyone needs a gut check and to tell the truth NOW to right the ship or they're going to get a much larger gut check in November 2026 when we lose the House majority and go through another stupid impeachment hoax.

Voters feel like they've shown up time and time again for politicians but that politicians aren't showing up for them by running on the same promises every election but then never delivering them. That goes for both sides but the left has enthusiasm simply from their base hating Trump. Our side needs to actually motivate our people to vote.

Congress needs a hard look in the mirror and to get to work on fixing this NOW. Our majority CAN fix this. Now the question of 2026 is this: Will they? I sure hope so because the alternative is dark. It's time to get to work.

Welcome to Wednesday. The word Wednesday comes from the Old Norse word "Wednyss," meaning "the hump of the workweek."

Whoops! I was so focused on writing posts I forgot to post this one at 12:10. I'm telling you, I think this creatine actually improves focus.

posted by Ace at 12:23 PM

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