President Donald Trump and the GOP clung to victory in Tennessee’s special election after Republican Matt Van Epps won the nail-biting congressional race by nine points.
And while Trump hailed it a “great night for the Republican Party” on Truth Social, Republicans warned the result in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District was “too close” after Democrats fought back —and it doesn’t bode well for the 2026 midterm elections, they said.
The race between Van Epps and the Democratic candidate Aftyn Behn was surprisingly close in a district where Trump won by 22 points in 2024.
“Tonight is a sign that 2026 is going to be a b**** of an election cycle,” one House Republican told Politico.
Republicans and Democrats poured millions into the race, which strategists noted should have been an easy win for the GOP.
Following upsets by Democrats in states in the November elections, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said that the result in Tennessee “was dangerous.”
“We could have lost this district because the people who showed up, many of them are the ones that are motivated by how much they dislike President Trump,” Cruz told Fox News Tuesday evening.
The closeness of the race signals how hard Republicans will have to work ahead of next year’s midterms, which typically see the president’s party lose seats in Congress.
Tennessee nail-biter sees Republican Van Epps hold House seat as far-left Democrat rides blue tsunami to surprising finish
Republican Matt Van Epps has won a special election in a race that turned out to be surprisingly closer than expected in a sign of the Republican Party’s increasing unpopularity going into next year’s midterm elections.
Van Epps, an Army veteran, defeated Aftyn Behn, a progressive state legislator, in the race for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional seat with 53.9 percent of the vote as of Tuesday evening with 99 percent of the vote count reported.
President Donald Trump was among the first to congratulate Van Epps, firing off several posts on Truth Social Tuesday evening after around 75 percent of the votes had been counted.
