How do you win an election, but nonetheless lose the evening?
Whereas votes are nonetheless being counted, Republicans have held on to their Home seat in Tennessee’s seventh Congressional District by a ridiculously slim margin—single digits. It is a district Donald Trump carried 60–38 in 2024.
Democrat Aftyn Behn and Republican Matt Van Epps on the marketing campaign path forward of the Dec. 2 particular election in Tennessee.
The outcome isn’t simply stunning. It’s ominous.
This race was by no means about flipping the seat. That remained the longest of lengthy photographs. What mattered was the margin. Republicans wanted a cushty win to undertaking energy and momentum heading into subsequent 12 months’s midterms. A mid-teens outcome would’ve been a flashing yellow mild. A Democratic victory would’ve signaled an outright political cataclysm. That didn’t occur, however a single-digit result’s one thing much more threatening. It’s full-throttle DANGER DANGER Will Robinson territory.
Whereas the ultimate tally isn’t but locked in, Democrats seem to have outperformed Trump’s 2024 margin by roughly 15 factors. A swing of that magnitude places a bullseye on dozens of Republican seats lengthy thought-about protected in any regular political local weather.
However these aren’t regular instances.
A shift this massive doesn’t simply jeopardize the Republican Home majority. It places the U.S. Senate again in play and casts severe doubt on any remaining GOP redistricting ambitions in states like Indiana and Florida. No Republican incumbent—regardless of how protected—will need to dilute their partisan benefit with numbers like these hanging overhead. Texas Republicans must be praying that the Supreme Court docket steps in and tosses out their maps for them.
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There’s no sugarcoating what this implies. Weak Republican incumbents have already been tiptoeing away from Trump, and that intuition will solely intensify. It’s no coincidence he didn’t bodily marketing campaign on this district. Polling confirmed him underwater—47–49%—in a spot that must be a fortress of crimson assist.
Buckle up.
The following few months are going to get very attention-grabbing, particularly if offended and demoralized Republicans begin heading for the exits early, as one nameless senior Home Republican not too long ago predicted would occur.
