When the Midterms Cone Into View - 12/8/25
Leave it to the Democrats to run a candidate for Congress in Nashville who hates country music.
In a deep-red district that encompasses large swaths of reliably Republican Tennessee and voted for Donald Trump by more than twenty points just over a year ago, Democratic House candidate Aftyn Behn was able to cut Trump’s margin more than in half, outperforming Kamala Harris in the district by 13 points to lose last week’s special election by a relatively competitive nine points. Despite Behn’s defeat, Democrats were excited with her relatively close showing, pointing out that similar double digit shifts would move more than 30 House seats in their direction in next year’s midterm elections.
The election news for the GOP could have been even more disturbing had the Democrats run a candidate even remotely suited for a rural conservative district that touched the Alabama and Kentucky state lines and that had not elected a Democrat in 40 years. But Behn, while a personable candidate and an effective campaigner, was not that person. In addition to her proclaimed distaste for country music, both a cultural touchstone and an economic foundation for her would-be constituents, Behn was also on the record discussing her antipathy for the city of Nashville itself. For good measure, she was also forced to address past social media postings in which she favored defunding police.
Behn also welcomed both Harris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to campaign with her, unhelpfully nationalizing the race with voters who were deeply distrustful of coastal progressives. But her message on affordability still allowed her to make deep inroads into communities that had been consistently loyal Republican voters for decades.
The Democrats’ misplay is especially puzzling given their successes in last month’s elections. While Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City, the party went to great lengths to nominate moderate candidates in gubernatorial campaigns in competitive swing states. Had a similarly centrist candidate as Mikey Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, who handily won their elections in New Jersey and Virginia, run in Tennessee, it’s entirely possible the Democrats would currently be celebrating the continuation of their off-year winning streak. But Republicans dubbed Behn as “the AOC of Tennessee” and escaped with a smaller victory than they would have liked, but a victory nonetheless.
Voter unhappiness over stubborn inflation and potentially skyrocketing health care costs have created formidable obstacles for the GOP, and Republican candidates for House and Senate are not looking forward to defending Trump’s actions in Venezuela, his dramatic transformation of the White House or the frenzy that will almost certainly accompany the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Trump himself seems noticeably uncomfortable engaging in the debate over high prices, alternately his promises to bring down the costs of food, housing, and electricity with a dismissal of the affordability discussion as a “Democratic hoax.” These are the issues that allowed Behn to run a competitive campaign, before her own biography got in the way.
History shows that a president’s party almost always loses seats in a midterm election, and coupled with Trump’s extremely low poll numbers and a seemingly demotivated MAGA nation, the recent election results suggest that Democrats could be well-poised to win back the House majority. But the party’s recent ideological discipline in last month’s statewide races was nowhere to be found, and it will be much more difficult to take advantage of Trump’s unpopularity if they decide to run candidates who are as ideologically ill-suited for their districts.
Contentious Democratic primaries are sprouting up throughout the country, as younger progressive candidates are challenging the party establishment. As Republicans have learned over the years, nominating candidates who excite the base but are unacceptable to independent and undecided voters is a recipe for electoral disaster. As 2026 begins to unfold, it will be worth keeping an eye on the Democrats’ candidate recruitment to see if they seize the center or choose instead to cede it to an unpopular majority party.
For their part, Republicans seem divided between those who recognize this brewing storm and loyalists who are crowing about their somewhat narrow win in what should be exceedingly friendly territory. Winston Churchill famously said that “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” Let’s also watch how the GOP translates their exhilaration into a strategy for next year’s high-stakes election season.