Lost the Battle. Winning the War.

If you’re an editor with an agenda, you’ll likely spin the news with a biased headline that captures your viewpoint and hides key details. That’s burying the lede. Tuesday's special election drew two main headlines. Fox News reported, “Trump-backed Republican keeps crucial congressional seat in GOP hands,” while Huffington Post wrote, “Republicans Narrowly Hang On In Tennessee Special Election.” Both are accurate, but the details matter.

What Fox News fails to point out is that it was the emergence of a trend that certainly doesn’t fit their target demographic.  While it is true that Republican Matt Van Epps did win and that Trump backed him, they bury the lede by failing to mention how much the district shifted, noting the margins before and after only indirectly midway through the article. Van Epps won over Democrat Aftyen Behn by just 9 points.  While that may seem like an average margin, Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District was a very deep, ruby-red district just last year, giving Trump and former Republican representative Mark Green a 22-point margin of victory.  That’s a 13-point swing in the Democrats’ favor, and compared to what happened just last year, that is “narrowly” hanging on.

It could also be a sign that candidates matter. Originally from Ohio, Van Epps has a very conservative profile. The Trump-aligned, West Point graduate previously served in the administration of Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Lee.  Running in a district that contains Fort Campbell, home of the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division, should have been a walk in the park for Van Epps.  But polls in the last week showed the race tightening against Behn, some within the margin of error.  

Van Epp’s opponent was far from the typical southern Democrat. From Knoxville, Behn has served parts of Nashville in the Tennessee House since 2023. Endorsed by Democratic Socialists of Middle Tennessee and the AFL-CIO, she fits a New England or Chicago-style Democrat profile.

The margin was so close that, had Van Epps not had a military background, he could have lost. If Behn were more of a moderate, southern Democrat, she could have won. Counterfactuals are tough to prove, but with only 15,000 votes separating them out of 178,000 votes cast, any variable could have made a big difference. It may also show that Republican-driven redistricting in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Indiana may not work as hoped. Tennessee’s 7th district is a prime example of gerrymandering. Since 2023, Nashville has been split among the 5th, 6th, and 7th districts, scattering Democratic votes across conservative areas and eliminating a solid Democratic seat.

Had Behn overcome the Republicans’ 20-point advantage and won, it would have been one of the largest upsets in the past 20 years.  For a progressive Democrat, she came shockingly close.  Serious Republicans will be looking at last night and doing the electoral math.  If there is a 13-point swing towards the Democrats in that district, with those candidates, what are the odds that more moderate Republicans in bellwether seats will win?  If there is indeed if that swing is expanded to the entire country, then the Democrats could win as many as 259 seats.  The Senate, long thought to be out of reach this cycle, could be a realistic flip.  

Last night was a good experiment to see whether the Democratic gains in Virginia and New Jersey last month were a one-off fluke held in the shadow of a government shutdown or a trend signalling larger dissatisfaction with the White House’s agenda.  Affordability was front and center in Tennessee last night; however, Trump dismissed it as “a con job, it's just a word.”  If that is going to be the attitude that the White House broadcasts to the nation, expect more Republicans to bow out rather than fight an uphill battle in 2026. It’s not a tsunami yet, but tremors are shaking the shoreline, warning of a wave to come.