Another Warning Sign for the GOP: This Tennessee House Race

Aftyn Behn, a Democratic state representative from Nashville, tried to flip a Tennessee congressional seat President Donald Trump won by 22 percentage points on Tuesday. She failed; Republican Matt Van Epps won with a 9-point margin. But the magnitude of the shift was another sign that even reliably Republican districts could be at play in the 2026 midterms, giving Democrats a good chance to regain control of the US House next year.

Tennessee voters turned out in higher than expected numbers for the District 7 special election, practically matching voter turnout for the 2022 midterms, according to data journalist G. Elliott Morris. That raises important questions about how durable the partisan proclivities of voters are: Did Republican voters sit out in significant numbers? Will they turn out next year for candidates other than Trump? Did independents and moderate Republicans cross over to protest the president and his policies with the hope of a Republican course correction? Or are voters ready to register a more permanent shift toward Democrats?