Election Day December 2, 2025– A Pyrrhic Victory in Tennessee for “Team Red,” An Overwhelming Win for “Team Blue’s” James Solomon in Jersey City Mayor’s Race, and a Deep South Triumph December 3, 2025
A “Pyrrhic victory.” Do any of you recall that term from your ancient history or Latin high school classes? I’ll refresh your memory. A “Pyrrhic victory” is a victory gained at such a cost to the victor that it is equivalent to defeat.The phrase refers to a statement attributed to King Pyrrhus of the Greek city-state Epirus. After his victory in the Battle of Asculum, in 279 BCE, classical historian/biographer Plutarch reported that Pyrrhus exclaimed, “One more victory over the Romans and we are completely done for.” In that battle, during the Pyrrhic War, Pyrrhus’ army suffered irreplaceable casualties.https://en.wiklipedia.org/ In the special December 2, 2025 election held to replace Tennessee GOP Rep. Mark Green who had vacated this seat to go into the private sector, with more than 95% of the votes counted, GOPer Matt Van Epps (42) defeated Democrat Aftyn Behn (36) by an 8.9% margin, 53.9%-45.0%.https://apnews.com/ That margin is a very low and close one in the Volunteer State 7th Congressional District (CD) district that Donald had “bigly” won in November, 2024 by 22 percentage points. The TN 7th stretches from Kentucky to Alabama and includes just one-third of the city of Nashville,part of its downtown, a “Blue” area. The TN GOP state legislators chopped up Democratic Nashville into three parts to deliberately elect a Republican in the 7th.https://first.last@nytimes.com
Initially, this race in this Cook PVI (Partisan Voting Index) R+10 Bible Belt area looked like a “slam dunk” safe GOP area that Democrats should not have basically contested in now heavily Andrew Jacksonian/Scots Irish Protestant “Red” TN. However, polls showed the race surprisingly tightening in this district because of Trump’s controversial policies, especially his inability to handle the high cost of living that gave Democrats their recent victories in the NJ and VA races. It took “all of ‘King Donald’s horses and men’” and millions of dollars to keep Nashville Democratic state representative Aftyn Behn from scoring a political upset. Van Epps, a former commissioner of the TN Department of General Services and army veteran,had to have Trump do a rally on the phone for him. GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) showed up in the district to get Van Epps over the finish line to escape political disaster. The GOP attacked Behn, who admitted she was a left-leaning progressive, as a “radical” out of step with Southern Tennessee voters. This tactic played well with the “red meat” rural base. Still Democrats remain optimistic after this race about the 2026 midterms. All they have to do in 2026 is flip just three seats to take back the House. In addition, roughly 100 GOP House seats were less pro-Trump in 2024 than TN’s “dark-Red” 7th. The GOP had to sweat out winning this TN 7th race.The fight in this normally super-”Red” district, as the NY Times correctly noted, remains a big warning shot about “Team Red’s” vulnerabilities going into the 2026 midterms.https://first.last@nytimes.com Democrats overperformed in this 7th CD special election by 13 points, in this awfully gerrymandered district. Since Donald’s re-election, “Team Blue” usually performs about 17 points better in special congressional elections than those districts’ lean in the last election. All these performances bode very well for Democratic prospects in 2026.https://first.last@nytimes.com
And now, let’s look at another political race that took place on December 2, 2025. This one was for the mayor’s chair in Jersey City, New Jersey. This time, a Democrat, James Solomon, won City Hall by a “y uu ge” margin. With about 60% of the votes in, Solomon, a Jersey City Council member, who first won his council seat in 2017, defeated former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey by the humungous 35.8 % margin, 67.9%-32.1%. And just like in NY, where former Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo lost to Democrat Zohran Mamdani, in NY City’s mayoralty contest in November, Solomon derailed McGreevey’s Garden State bid for a political comeback. https://cnn.com, https://apnews.com/ There are other similarities in those two races. Former NJ Gov. McGreevey like ex-NY Gov. Cuomo was scandal tarred and along withCuomo had to leave his gubernatorial post. In addition, both Mamadani and Solomon had served on their respective city councils. And Solomon, like Mamdani, focused on affordability of housing while on the city council and during his campaign. https://first.last@nytimes.com In fact, Jersey City is quite like Mamdani’s NY City. Jersey City has many high rises and immigrant neighborhoods. It is located across the Hudson River from Manhattan in an area that people sometimes refer to as the Sixth Borough.https://apnews.com/ Solomon, a father of three daughters, is a teacher at two Jersey City colleges as well. Two months after his marriage in August 2015, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma but was completely cured of this cancer. He received his BA from CA’s Pomona College and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.https://solomonforjc.com, https://first.last@nytimes.com And in another mayor’s race, this time in the Deep South, Democrats flipped City Hall in purple city Roswell, Georgia, a major northern suburb of Atlanta, from “Red” to “Blue.”https://@kristenchapman.bsky.social
I repeat–all these contests bode well for Democratic hopes in the crucial 2026 midterms. In 2025, one year after Donald won the White House again, people are having buyers’ remorse. They are voting to show their discontent with Donald and his GOP fan club. We must keep our opposition up and get even more people to the polls in 2026 to put a major check on Trumpism.
