MAGA figures are fretting over a special congressional election in Tennessee in which a deep-red district just might turn blue.
Donald Trump carried Tennessee’s 7th congressional district by 22 points in the presidential election, but Tuesday’s vote for the MAGA stronghold now has some Republicans rattled.
“It shouldn’t even be close. But it is,” the state’s MAGA congressman Tim Burchett told Fox News on Monday, having previously told the New York Post: “I’m very concerned about it.”
“Republicans need to turn out and keep this Trump district red so we can protect our majority in Congress,” RNC Chair Joe Gruters told The Tennessee Star, urging people in the state to turn up early and “lock in” their votes.
On Tuesday, voters will cast ballots to fill the seat vacated by GOP Representative Mark Green, who’d beat Democrat Megan Barry for the seat last year by more than 21 points, and who’s now retiring from public office to take on a job in the private sector that was simply “too exciting to pass up.”
“If the GOP wins by under 10 points, that most likely outcome is actually a very bad outcome for Republicans compared to the presidential baseline,” CNN data guru Harry Enten said Sunday of the upcoming race. “We’re talking about Democrats outperforming the 2024 presidential baseline by double digits.”
The race to replace Green is now being run by Republican Matt Van Epps and Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn. Current polls show Van Epps leading Behn by only two points, with Trump’s approval in the district completely underwater.
This substantial closing of the gap in a state long hostile to Democrats has been taken by many commentators as a clear sign of the breadth and depth of voter resentment toward the GOP ahead of next year’s crucial midterm elections.
Trump himself appears wary of the race’s significance. “PLEASE VOTE FOR MATT VAN EPPS, who has my Complete and Total Endorsement,” the president wrote of the GOP candidate last week.
His pleading continued over the weekend, with the president even resorting to a bizarre attack on Behn’s taste in music. “Matt is fighting against a woman who hates Christianity, will take away your guns, wants Open Borders, Transgender for everybody, men in women’s sports, and openly disdains Country music,” he wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday. “She said all of these things precisely, and without question — IT’S ON TAPE! Do not take this Race for granted.”
On Sunday, CNN analyst Enten was cautious to point out that the election has not yet been held and that midterms remain at this stage just under a year away, but nevertheless underscored how consequential the vote may be if it goes the way it’s currently forecast to.
“At this point, all signs point to Democrats doing significantly better on Tuesday than they did back in 2024 in Tennessee’s seventh congressional district,” he said. “When you put that together with the prior special House elections this year, it paints a very good picture for Democrats heading into 2026.”
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