Tennessee Election Result Is a Fire Alarm for Republicans...

Newsweek illustration/Getty Images

By Newsweek EditorsShareNewsweek is a Trust Project member

On Tuesday afternoon, CNN’s Harry Enten stared at a graphic of Tennessee’s 7th District and delivered a warning. Even a narrow Republican win there, he told viewers, would be “a bad sign” because Donald Trump had carried the seat by double digits every time he was on the ballot. An Emerson poll had the GOP nominee Matt Van Epps up just two points over Democrat Aftyn Behn, and Enten noted there was an 80-plus percent chance of a double-digit swing to the left—part of a broader pattern of Democrats overperforming in special elections since Trump’s second term began.

By night’s end, Enten’s gloomy scenario for Republicans had basically materialized. Van Epps held the deep-red seat, but his roughly nine-point win was a dramatic comedown from former Representative Mark Green’s 21-point margin. What was supposed to be a sleepy hold in “Trump country” instead required a late rescue mission by Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and millions in outside spending from both parties.

Republicans can comfort themselves that a win is still a win—and that their House majority inches up to 220–213, at least until other vacancies kick in. But the price of that victory, in money and margin, is why Tennessee’s 7th is reverberating far beyond Nashville. In a district Republicans literally redrew to erase a Democratic seat, Tennessee just rang a very loud bell about how fragile their Trump-era coalition has become.

Why is this happening?

The special election in Tennessee’s 7th District was triggered when Republican Mark Green resigned on July 20, 2025, to take a private-sector job after voting for Trump’s flagship “One Big Beautiful Bill” tax-and-spending package, leaving a vacancy in a seat Republicans had held comfortably for years. The race to replace him—between Van Epps, a 42-year-old Army veteran, and Behn, a 36-year-old progressive state representative and activist—was held on December 2 after primaries in October and an early-voting window that ended the day before Thanksgiving.

On paper, this should never have been a cliffhanger. Tennessee Republicans used the 2022 redistricting cycle to dismantle a safely Democratic, Nashville-anchored seat and divide the city’s voters among three Republican-leaning districts, turning TN-7 into a Trump +22 fortress where Green won by 21 points in 2024. Only about one-fifth of the district’s voters now live in heavily Democratic Nashville; the rest stretch through fast-growing suburbs and more conservative rural counties.

But the conditions for an upset—or at least an embarrassment—were all there. Trump’s job approval in the district slid underwater by late November, with 49 percent of likely voters disapproving and 47 percent approving in an Emerson poll, a “stark reversal” from his 22-point win there last year. Among independents, 59 percent disapproved and just 34 percent approved of his performance.

That same poll showed Van Epps leading Behn by just two points, 49–47, well within the margin of error and far below previous Republican margins. The economy dominated voters’ concerns: about 38 percent named it the most important issue, with housing affordability, health care and “threats to democracy” clustered behind. Behn leaned hard into those anxieties, campaigning on lowering grocery, housing and health-care costs and attacking Trump-era tariffs and spending priorities as giveaways to corporations and the wealthy.

Republicans, for their part, did what they know best: nationalized the race around Trump and caricatured the Democrat. Van Epps pledged he would have Trump’s back “100 percent,” called the former president a “true ‘America First’ patriot,” and promised to help him “save the nation we love.” GOP ads branded Behn “the AOC of Tennessee,” replayed her support for defunding the police and transgender rights, and painted her as wildly out of step with the district.

Both parties treated the contest like a mini-midterm. The Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. super PAC spent roughly $1–1.7 million boosting Van Epps—its first major expenditure since the presidential race—while conservative outfits like Club for Growth Action piled on. On the left, House Majority PAC dropped around $1 million on ads for Behn, backed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, labor unions and national progressive groups.

The result: with nearly all votes counted, Van Epps led Behn by about nine points, 53.9 to 45.1—an 8.9-point margin that chopped more than a dozen points off Trump’s edge and Green’s last victory. In an era when Democrats have been outperforming 2024 presidential margins in special elections by an average of roughly 18 points, from Florida to Arizona, Tennessee slots neatly into a larger story about a country that is still red on paper but purple in practice.

What is the Right saying?

Trump hailed Tennessee as “another great night for the Republican Party,” congratulating Van Epps on his “BIG Congressional WIN” and mocking “Radical Left Democrats” for throwing “Millions of Dollars” at the race. Van Epps told supporters that “running with Trump is how you win,” arguing his victory was a defining moment for Tennessee and the country.

Across conservative commentary, the party line is that Democrats set their money on fire chasing a fantasy, Republicans held where it counted, and the lesson is not to abandon Trump but to organize harder in supposedly safe red turf.

What is the Left saying?

The left is treating Tennessee like a siren test that worked. DNC chair Ken Martin crowed that Behn’s performance in a Trump +22 district was “historic” and “a flashing warning sign for Republicans heading into the midterms.”

Behn herself framed the race as the start of something, not a fluke. “We may not have won tonight, but we changed the story of what’s possible here,” she told supporters, vowing that “we’re not done, not by a long shot.”

What happens next?

In the short term, Van Epps will be sworn in to give Republicans a 220–213 edge in the House—but that cushion is already shrinking. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s impending resignation in Georgia will bring the GOP back down, while Democrats are favored to pick up or hold seats in upcoming special elections in Texas and New Jersey, which would further tighten the margin.

The more consequential fallout is strategic. Tennessee has already become Exhibit A in arguments that aggressive GOP gerrymanders—like slicing Nashville into three Republican-leaning seats—can backfire once demographics shift and Trump isn’t literally on the ballot. Republicans in other states now weighing mid-decade maps, especially Texas, know that a district engineered to be Trump +20 on paper can behave more like a swing seat in a low-turnout, cost-of-living election.

Democrats, meanwhile, will read Tennessee as proof that investing in “hopeless” red seats can force the GOP to spend money it doesn’t have and build bench strength for later cycles. The DCCC is already boasting that it is “on offense not just in…swing districts but in red terrain across the country,” from Trump country to rural and Latino communities.

But the loudest alarm from Tennessee may be for Trump himself. His approval is now underwater in a district he dominated just a year ago; independents there have turned sharply against him; and Republicans had to unleash every lever of MAGA power to hang on to a seat they once took for granted. Special elections are sometimes an early fire alarm. Tennessee’s is now blaring in every Republican campaign office in the country.

Once a core feature of Newsweek’s print edition, Perspectives distilled the week’s news into a chorus of standout quotes. Today, we’re relaunching Perspectives in a different format, but with the same mission of keeping our members informed by showcasing the views that shape the conversation.

Request Reprint & LicensingSubmit CorrectionView Editorial & AI Guidelines