December 3, 2025

Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.

Lessons From The Tennessee CD-7 Congressional Special Election

By Bill Wilson

While there was a little drama in the early counting of the votes, in the end the results in the special election to fill Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District were predictable, with Matt Van Epps winning with 53.9 percent of the vote. While the hard-Left Democrat came closer that any other similar candidate in the past, it was never going to be enough. No amount of “dark” billionaire money, union operatives and neo-Marxist NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) were going to overcome the natural ethic of the people of Tennessee.

But to listen to the corporate media and the paid propagandists, this was supposed to be very close, but then it wasn’t. The truth is that the base of the Democrat Party is depressed, near suicidal. All they can do is feed a bunch of lawyers to file endless lawsuits that eventually fail. They do not have the votes and they do not have the vision to counter President Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) team. So, to keep the peasants down on the plantation, the Democrat-Media Complex are looking for anything to give their base hope.

Just look at the situation. The Democratic National Committee is broke, no money, no manpower and no plan. The so-called leadership in Congress borders on a joke. The feckless leaders in both the House and Senate cannot command their own members or the agenda. Their efforts at narrative control are laughable. The President’s team always seems to come up with something more interesting and attractive.

All of that said, the Republicans should pay attention to the results and learn a few valuable lessons. First, if you need to motivate the base of the vote that elected the President, you don’t accomplish that by engaging is silly, childish fights over issues that have no impact. Case in point, the Jeffrey Epstein files. Why all the back and forth? Release the damn files and let the chips fall where they may.  

Remember, foreign policy and foreign affairs do not matter to 90-plus percent of the voters. As long as the government is not sending their sons and daughters off to a war in some God-forsaken hellhole, they really do not care. End the wars and have everyone build and create. So why the focus? It makes no sense. And if the paid left wants to hold protests and disrupt college campuses over Gaza or anything other conflict, let them. Don’t feed their story. But, if they resort to violence and break the law, crush them like a dry leaf.  

The President and the Republicans need to focus on their successes and the issues that still motivate the MAGA base — secure borders, ending illegal immigration, reversing the failed policies of “deindustrialization,” and keep the U.S. out of war. That is what the people voted for and that is what all polling tells us are still the drivers. Any time some self-appointed guru tells the President that some fad issue or near total focus on cultural issues — like was done in the disastrous Virginia gubernatorial effort — will win the day, they should be kicked the curb. The only issues that matter are the economy, continuing to cool the Biden-Democrat inflation and illegal aliens. That is all that is needed.

So, the corporate media will now have to look for a new “critical race” to get people all worked up about and try to boost the spirits of the collectivist faithful. But in the end, once MAGA gets back to basics, does the hard work of registering voters and getting them to the polls, there is little to no hope for the Democrats at flipping deep red districts and states in 2026. Until they change their agenda and start listening to saner voices like Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, they are stuck with no way out of the rut they have dug for themselves.

Bill Wilson is the former president of Americans for Limited Government. 

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2025/12/lessons-from-the-tennessee-cd-7-congressional-special-election/ 

Tennessee CD-7 Victory Best GOP Special House Election Performance In Years As 2026 Midterms Loom

By Robert Romano

In a 20-plus percentage point Republican district in 2024, U.S Representative-elect Matt Van Epps won Tennessee's 7th Congressional District by a mere 9 points, 53.9 percent to 45 percent. It being a special election, turnout is much lower and with a Republican in the White House, the candidate running in the same party, in this case Van Epps, always underperforms. The question with every special election under these circumstances is by how much.

In 2024, former Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Green won the same seat with 59.5 percent of the vote. So, Van Epps — just like every special election with his party’s president in the White House — underperformed, but only by 5.6 percentage points.

In fact, Van Epps’ was the best performance by a Republican in a special election under these circumstances in recent cycles.

In 2017, while there were no special House elections in Tennessee, nationally there were five races in seats Republicans held: Kansas’ 4th Congressional District, Montana’s At-Large Congressional District, Geogia’s 6th Congressional District, South Carolina’s 5th Congressional District and Utah’s 3rd Congressional District. There were drop-offs of 8.5 points, 6.25 points, 9.9 points, 8.16 points and 15.5 points, respectively, from the presidential election year performance in those same districts. 

In 2016, Republicans for those seats averaged 62.26 percent of the vote for those districts, but in the 2017 special House elections, they only averaged 52.6 percent, almost a 10-point drop-off with the Republican president in the White House compared to the prior presidential election. 

And in 2025, there have been two special House elections in Republican-held seats in Florida’s 1st and 6th Congressional districts. In 2024, Republicans averaged 66.2 percent of the vote for both seats, and in the special elections averaged 56.8 percent. Almost another 10-point drop-off — 9 points and 9.8 points, respectively.

Meaning, there was some combination of Republicans overperforming in the Tennessee special election environment and Democrats underperforming. In a Nov. 22 to Nov. 24 Emerson College poll, the only major poll taken, Van Epps only led Aftyn Behn 47.5 percent to 46 percent. Van Epps did about 6 points better and Behn 1 point worse. 

Galvanized by the prospect of a close race and Republicans kicked into high gear to turn their people out — and they triumphed. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) flew to Tennessee and personally participated in the campaign’s final days to ensure that the House Republican majority remained where it was. Republicans took the race seriously, and an Election Day turnout campaign won the day to overcome a Democratic Party early voting advantage.

Now Republicans will hold a 220 to 213 majority in the House until Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene resigns in January, taking it back to 219, after which there will be yet another special election.

The 2026 Congressional midterms will be here in a heartbeat and Republicans will have to fight every bit as hard in all 220 districts just to keep what they have — with only three seats to lose before the current House majority evaporates. Republicans have to win 99 percent of the races where they have incumbent seats, or they’ll lose the majority.

The smallest losses in a midterm in modern history in years where there were losses was just three House seats by Democrats in 1962 following the Cuban Missile Crisis. Nobody loses just two seats. If you’re the White House incumbent party losing seats in the House, which occurs 90 percent of the time in Congressional midterms, the overwhelming odds are you lose more than two seats, with losses averaging almost 35 seats in years with losses in midterms.

 Otherwise, the only exceptions to the midterm jinx occurred in 1934 when Democrats picked up nine House seats, in 1998 when Democrats picked up four House seats and 2002 when Republicans picked up eight House Seats.

The moral of the story is don’t take anything for granted. Above all else, House Republicans should be focused on passing as much legislation as possible that advances their agenda so voters have a reason to show up in November. Meaning, whatever President Donald Trump was hoping to accomplish in Congress, it’s now or never.

Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government. 

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2025/12/tennessee-cd-7-victory-best-gop-special-house-election-performance-in-years/