Democratic congressional candidate Aftyn Behn, shown in November.
Survey Says is a weekly series rounding up the most important polling trends or data points you need to know about, plus a vibe check on a trend that’s driving politics or culture.
Republican Matt Van Epps won a Tennessee House special election on Tuesday to fill the seat vacated by Rep. Mark Green, who resigned in July. At first glance, it’s a win for the GOP—but the margins reveal a more complicated story than a simple Republican hold.
Van Epps defeated Democrat Aftyn Behn by a mere 9 percentage points. In 2024, Green won the district by nearly 22 points, and President Donald Trump carried it by roughly the same margin over Democrat Kamala Harris.
In other words, the district swung 13 points toward Democrats in a year, a shift that should raise alarms for Republicans, especially in districts Trump won by single digits.
Democrat Aftyn Behn, left, and Republican Matt Van Epps, the latter of which won the special election for Tennessee’s 7th District.
“The margins were narrowed in every county in the district,” even if Democrats didn’t win those same counties outright, Kent Syler, a professor of political science at Middle Tennessee State University, told Daily Kos. “When you’re trying to overcome a 20-plus percentage margin, it’s hard to reverse it totally, but there were significant gains, and it continued the trend of Democrats overperforming in elections this year.”
The race unfolded quickly. Van Epps was sworn in less than 48 hours after results were certified—a rapid pace compared with Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva, whose swearing-in took weeks. Yet the speed of official proceedings belied the contest’s competitiveness, which saw Democrats making notable inroads in counties long considered solidly Republican.
Turnout in Tennessee’s 7th District was unusually high for a special election, approaching midterm levels. Roughly 179,899 people voted—just shy of the 180,822 ballots cast in 2022. Yet Van Epps received approximately 11,400 fewer votes than Green did in 2022, suggesting a drop in Republican enthusiasm and a surge in Democratic mobilization.
Because it was an off-year special election, polling was limited. But of the few polls released before Tuesday, most closely tracked the final results.
The lone exception was an Emerson College survey, which had Van Epps edging out a win by just 2 points. Otherwise, the surveys landed close to the final result, a small but welcome win for pollsters in a type of race that’s notoriously hard to gauge.
The result is consistent with a broader trend in 2025: Democrats overperforming in special elections and low-turnout contests. The 13-point swing in Tennessee’s 7th is slightly below the 17-point average in this year’s congressional special elections but is on par with gains in downballot state legislative contests.
“Anytime you’re a member of the party of the president in a midterm, you should be naturally worried in marginal districts,” Syler told Daily Kos. “The country continues to be in a bad mood, and the first person voters blame is the incumbent president. You can see it in [former President Joe] Biden’s low approval ratings, and Trump’s are low, too. That’s scary for Republicans in these districts.”
Money poured into the race. Roughly $6 million was spent, with Republicans outspending Democrats by about $3.5 million to $2.5 million. Yet Van Epps’ narrow margin signals that money alone is insufficient to guarantee a safe GOP hold, particularly in districts with energized Democratic bases.
Democrats saw notable gains in the district’s urban and suburban counties, like Montgomery and Williamson. And while they still improved on their 2024 margins across the map, rural areas remained firmly Republican.
“Democrats have to start being more competitive and actually winning in non-urban areas,” Syler said. “The rural problem is a national problem, and that’s got to be addressed.”
In districts like Tennessee’s 7th, suburban shifts can make or break close races, even if rural areas continue to trend right.
Candidate selection will be critical for Democrats heading into 2026. Behn, a former progressive organizer who beat several more moderate Democrats in the primary, was hit with a wave of Trump-aligned super PAC ads resurfacing old clips of her calling herself “a very radical person.” She argues those comments were taken out of context, though Syler noted that her progressive profile likely boosted turnout in urban pockets while making it harder to connect with voters in more rural parts of the district.
Democratic congressional candidate Aftyn Behn speaks during a campaign event in November.
“Her margins were incredible in places where there were Democrats,” Syler said. “I don’t know that a moderate could’ve gotten any better, but Democrats have got to be able to increase their numbers in suburban and rural areas.”
“Progressives,” he added, are “selling something that’s harder for suburban and rural voters to buy.”
The high turnout also signals a reinvigorated Democratic base. Earlier this year, many pundits suggested Democrats were disengaged, but the strong showing in Tennessee points to a motivated, organized electorate.
“There’s no doubt that the Democratic base is fired up. That’s what happens when you’re out of power, and you’re mad, and I’m certain that enthusiasm will carry forward to 2026,” Syler said. “The fact that this election became such a story and so competitive and had so much money spent on it is really remarkable. Going into this, everyone thought the Republican primary would decide who would ultimately win the race, but this race just exploded.”
Historically, special elections can act as bellwethers. In the 2017-18 cycle, Democrats beat benchmarks in special elections by about 11 points before winning the House popular vote by almost 9 points in the 2018 midterm elections. Tennessee’s 7th mirrors that pattern: a sizable swing leftward in a previously safe district, signaling early momentum for Democrats as they look to 2026.
The results cut both ways: a warning light for Republicans and a welcome bit of reassurance for Democrats. Districts that once seemed comfortably red are showing some slippage, and even places that backed Trump by big numbers may be more competitive than they look on paper.
As the 2026 midterms approach, Tennessee’s 7th offers a blueprint of the political terrain ahead—high stakes, energized voters, and an electorate increasingly willing to defy expectations.
Any updates?
-
It’s not just Latino voters drifting from Trump. Even parts of his MAGA base are wincing after he accused several Democratic lawmakers of sedition and suggested they should be put to death. A new poll from The Economist/YouGov found only 60% of Trump’s 2024 voters support his comments, while 29% disapprove—unusually large dissent for a group that rarely opposes him. It’s an early sign that even his most loyal supporters have limits. And the trigger was hardly radical: A brief video from six Democratic lawmakers noting that “No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.”
Vibe check
Tucked inside the latest Economist/YouGov poll is an intriguing experiment that asked Americans to decide whether a series of policy statements were liberal or conservative.
And it turns out, a good slice of the electorate can’t reliably tell the two apart. About 1 in 10 Americans routinely mislabels traditionally liberal statements as conservative. For example, 11% say that “Military spending should be increased” is a liberal statement, despite the Republican Party traditionally leading that charge.
But the confusion isn’t confined to one side of the aisle. Fourteen percent of Democrats and 11% of Republicans identify the “military spending” statement as liberal. In general, Americans in both parties misattribute statements at similar rates.
What’s more revealing is what the mislabels say about people’s ideological instincts. In some cases, conservatives recognize a view as “liberal” but still support it, suggesting their self-identification doesn’t always map onto their actual policy preferences.
Take the line “Taxes should be raised on the wealthy.” Two-thirds of Americans (66%) correctly classify it as liberal, while 10% call it conservative. Yet the idea itself is broadly popular. The Pew Research Center reported in March that 58% of Americans want to raise taxes on households making $400,000 or more annually—and that includes 43% of Republicans. That disconnect hints at a deeper tension between ideological branding and policy beliefs.
The same pattern shows up on environmental protections. “The environment should be protected against pollution” is considered a liberal view by 56% of Americans in the Economist/YouGov poll, while 13% consider it a conservative statement. But earlier this year, Gallup found Americans siding with protecting the environment over prioritizing economic growth, 54% to 38%—another instance in which a chunk of conservatives may support a policy they label as belonging to the other side.
One result stands out for how neatly it clashes with today’s political rhetoric. “Spending should be cut on Social Security” is tagged as a conservative view by 49%, while 14% consider it liberal. Yet Gallup shows most Americans don’t want Social Security cuts—and Trump has gone out of his way to promise he won’t touch the program, if only to avoid angering older voters.
But Trump may be an anomaly. Past Republican presidents spent years trying to trim or privatize Social Security, and high-profile conservatives show little respect for the program, which likely keeps the association alive in voters’ minds.
Andrew Mangan contributed research.
