Republicans held onto a reliably conservative U.S. House district in Tennessee’s special election, but only after a late burst of national spending and high-profile campaigning helped them secure a margin less than half of last year’s race.
Even with that victory, the outcome contributed to a gloomy outlook for the party going into the 2026 midterms that will determine control of Congress. Republicans will need to defend much more vulnerable seats if they have any hope of keeping their House majority, while Democrats are capitalizing on President Donald Trump’s unpopularity and the public’s persistent frustration with the economy.
“The danger signs are there, and we shouldn’t have had to spend that kind of money to hold that kind of seat,” said Jason Roe, a national Republican strategist working on battleground races next year.
He said that “Democratic enthusiasm is dramatically higher than Republican enthusiasm.”
Republican Matt Van Epps, a military veteran and former state general services commissioner, defeated Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn by 9 percentage points on Tuesday for the seat vacated by Republican Mark Green, who retired over the summer. Green had won reelection in 2024 by 21 percentage points.
