Tuesday night’s special election in Tennessee’s red 7th Congressional District could give Democrats clues as to where the 2026 midterms are heading, but they’re not waiting for results to get their hopes up about races in competitive areas.
“Democrats have been over-performing the 2024 Trump numbers since the very beginning of his presidency, starting in late January in Iowa, where we flipped a district that Donald Trump had just won,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told NOTUS, referring to the Iowa state Senate seat that Democrats won earlier this year.
The Democrat in Tennessee, state Rep. Aftyn Behn, is expected to lose to Republican Matt Van Epps in the race to replace former Rep. Mark Green, who resigned from Congress in July. But, the race also appears to be closer than Republicans would like, given that Trump won the district by 22 percentage points. (Republicans notoriously don’t win by high margins in special elections.)