Let me put it this way. Aftyn Behn didn’t win, but she put up strong enough numbers that Republicans are going doo-doo in their big boy pants this morning. Look for more GOP members to suddenly want to spend more time with their families! Via CNN:
Republicans avoided disaster on Tuesday night by winning a special election in a solidly red Tennessee congressional district.
But the single-digit race there is merely the latest in an unambiguously troubling series of recent election results for President Donald Trump’s party 11 months before the 2026 midterm elections.
Republican Rep.-elect Matt Van Epps led Democrat Aftyn Behn by about nine points with 95% of the vote counted.
That’s in a district that Trump carried by 22 points and former GOP Rep. Mark Green won by more than 21 points last year.
That means that, as things stand, Behn over-performed Democrats’ 2024 presidential margin by about 13 points and their 2024 House margin by about 12 points.
