It’s time to ditch the referendum rhetoric.
The Tennessee 7th Congressional District special election was billed as the first step in taking back control from the Republican Party. If the press and politicos were to be believed, Democrat candidate State Rep. Aftyn Behn was going to bury GOP contender Matt Van Epps and overturn the 20-point advantage President Trump garnered in the 2024 general election. But as the dust settled on the December 2 contest, it seems the pundits may as well have been casting bones or reading murky tea leaves.
Van Epps scored a nine-point final victory over Behn (54% to 45%) despite the full-court press of star power and cash that swamped the state. Notably, polling in this race was scarce, and the one major survey that did get released posited that the GOP hopeful was a mere two points clear of his challenger. Of course, such a tight margin meant that all involved on the Democrat side embraced this as the final indicator that the Trump presidency is well and truly done. Van Epps, in his victory speech, had other ideas.
Trump for Tennessee
Thanking the GOP partners who joined him on the campaign, Van Epps said that his win “represented a defining moment for Tennessee and for the direction of the country,” emphasizing that “running with Trump is how you win” as a Republican.
DNC Chair Ken Martin, however, was quick with the spin. He argued, “The fact that Republicans spent millions to protect this Trump +22 district and still lost so much ground should have the GOP shaking in their boots.” No mention was made of the equal amount of dollars spent by Democrats courtesy of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s HMP PAC and Netflix founder Reed Hastings.
In fact, drilling down into the 14 counties that make up the 7th District, Behn secured victory in just one: Davidson, the same single county that former GOP congressman Mark Green lost in 2024 and 2022. Of note is that Behn only drew around two-thirds of the votes in this county that the Democrat challenger in 2024 secured, and this was because both turnout and enthusiasm is much lower in a special election than on a national ballot day. All told, this was a reasonable performance by Behn, but no cause for celebration.
A Pass or Fail Test
The Washington Post presented a well-crafted summation in the wake of the Republican victory, positing that “While far from a perfect predictor of future outcomes, the election was a final exam of sorts for both parties at the end of a tumultuous political year, with the focus now turning to the midterms.” But then, in true left-leaning style, it manages to miss the entire point.
If this were a final exam, the GOP in general and Van Epps in particular passed with flying colors. Did the contender perform less well than the president in the 2024 election? Certainly, an 11-point drop is nothing to be sneezed at; however, a congressional race is not a presidential election, and turnout is just about always way lower. Some might say it’s a case of comparing apples and motor cars; the alignment just doesn’t match.
Yet Another Referendum on Trump
After all, this was not a regular midterm election nor a ballot for the executive; turnout was going to be low, and in such cases, margins would be inevitably tighter. Add in the fact that the Democratic Party needed to score a blow in the aftermath of the 43-day shutdown, which garnered precisely zero wins for the opposition, and it seems that – especially in hindsight – team blue was engaged in a case of wishful thinking. As Liberty Nation News Senior Political Analyst Tim Donner writes:
“There have been three two-term presidents in the 21st century. At the same point in their presidencies, one year into their second terms, average public approval for Obama stood at 40%, with George W. Bush at 40.6%. Trump stands at 42.5%, two points better than both.”
If this were truly a referendum on the commander-in-chief, President Trump Aced it. As is typical in such electoral high-stakes betting, the opposing side engages in a bait-and-switch operation whereby if it goes their way, they have conclusively proven that the leading party is on the rocks. If it doesn’t, they claim it was never going to be close and that the contest was merely a road sign on the path to eventual victory. We’ve seen it with claims that Trump is the destroyer of democracy and that this year (insert a year of your choosing) is going to be the very last time the dictator in the White House will allow elections to be held.
Until the real referendum on the Trump presidency arrives in the form of the 2026 midterm elections, this was just another Tennessee Waltz in which the Democratic Party couldn’t find enough dance partners.
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