Last night, as expected, Matt Van Epps won the special election in Tennessee’s seventh congressional district. As I noted, I did not doubt he would win, but the question was the margin.
The district is actually an R+10 district, meaning a generic Republican should beat a generic Democrat by ten points. Trump won the district by 22 points. Former Congressman Mark Greene won it by 21.5 points. Last night, Matt Van Epps won it by less than ten points, but more than five points.
It is fair to say that this was an off-off-year election the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, so there is only so much to make of turnout except that the turnout roughly matched the midterm November turnout from 2022. Read that again — last night generated midterm turnout levels the Tuesday after Thanksgiving in an odd-numbered year special election.
It is also fair to say that in a district that Trump won by twenty-two points just over 12 months ago, the Republican should not have won by less than ten points with turnout at roughly 2022 levels.
If we get to the midterms and every district shifts the way TN-07 did last night, the Democrats would pick up around 43 seats. Every single county in the district shifted left, some more than others.
Davidson: 25 points to the left.
Dickson: 12 points to the left.
Hickman: 8 points to the left.
Humphreys: 12 points to the left.
Wayne: 7 points to the left.
Decatur: 9 points to the left.
Benton: 9 points to the left.
Houston: 12 points to the left.
Perry: 15 points to the left.
The pattern in both special elections and big statewide elections nationwide this year, the GOP is underperforming and Democrats are overperforming with independent voters who tell pollsters they are both exhausted by Trump and upset with the cost of living.
Publicly, Republicans will spin this as no big deal because it was a special election in an odd-numbered year the week after Thanksgiving. Privately, they will understand the pattern keeps holding up. From Mississippi to Georgia to Virginia and beyond, the usual rule of politics appears to be holding up — the party in the White House in midterms gets hurt.
So the GOP needs to embrace Operation Kooktoberfest and do to Democrats what Democrats did to the GOP in 2022.
The GOP needs to amplify the craziest and nuttiest progressives in each Democrat primary and make it appear that person is the one the GOP fears the most. Help shape the Democratic primary and push it as far left as possible because, as much as voters do not like Donald Trump, they positively hate the far left.
