This week’s surprisingly close special election in Tennessee is the latest sign the Republican majority in Congress is on “borrowed time” and has less than a year to accomplish its legislative goals, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board warned.
Matt Van Epps, 42, a Trump-endorsed Army veteran and former state commissioner, defeated Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn, 36, by just 9 percentage points in Tuesday’s race for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, according to the Associated Press.
President Donald Trump swept the district by 22 points in 2024, and Van Epps’ predecessor won by 21 points, meaning Behn overperformed by double digits.
Although Republicans held onto the seat, the results continued a nationwide trend that has left Democrats celebrating and Republican insiders panicking about a “flashing red light” for the GOP.
“In the six special elections so far this year, the average voter swing has been 15.2 points toward Democrats, according to Daniel Clifton of Strategas Research Partners,” the Journal’s opinion editors wrote. “History says a 15-point swing next November would be consistent with a Democratic gain of 43 House seats. The current GOP margin is three.”
Even factoring in the partisan divide and Republican gerrymandering, if the trend continues, Republicans will lose the House, according to the Rupert Murdoch-owned paper.
That would put an end to Trump’s domestic agenda, forcing the White House and Republican Congress to make “hard choices soon about what they can accomplish that might leave more than an ephemeral policy mark,” the Journal editors wrote.
“Democrats are unlikely to cooperate on much, though it’s worth an attempt on permitting reform for energy and other projects in particular,” they continued. “More defense spending is also possible.”
Notably, the editorial did not call for eliminating the Senate filibuster to help Trump achieve his policy goals while he still can.
Instead, the Journal noted that the budget reconciliation bill, which only requires a simple majority, is the “best chance there is to do something meaningful.”
The president has repeatedly demanded that Senate Republicans embrace the “nuclear option” and blow up the filibuster, the centuries-old legislative check on the party in power requiring two-thirds of senators to agree to bring a bill to the floor for a vote.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, however, has so far resisted.
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