Progressive Democrat Aftyn Behn fell short of flipping a Republican-held US House seat in Tennessee’s December 2 special election but cut deeply into the GOP’s advantage. Her performance, alongside other 2025 races, has prompted Democrats to view the results as an early sign of potential momentum heading into the 2026 midterms.
On December 2, 2025, Aftyn Behn, a progressive Democrat and Tennessee state legislator, competed in a special election to fill a US House seat in a heavily gerrymandered Republican district in Tennessee. In the 2024 presidential election, the district backed the Republican ticket 60–38. Behn narrowed that gap in the special election, losing by a 54–45 margin in a contest that The Nation described as having “surprisingly robust turnout.” (thenation.com)
According to an analysis in The Nation, this result fits a broader pattern in special elections for open US House seats since Donald Trump’s second term began. In those contests, Democrats have on average outperformed their 2024 presidential ticket numbers by roughly a 13-point swing, the same shift Behn achieved in Tennessee. (thenation.com)
CNN analyst Harry Enten, quoted in The Nation, highlighted the geographic breadth of this trend. “Whether you go from the suburbs of Washington, DC, all the way to the Southwest in Arizona, whether you’re looking at Texas, whether you’re looking at Tennessee, whether you go down to Florida, we are seeing the Democratic out-performance of Kamala Harris happening across the political map,” he said. (thenation.com)
Enten also pointed to historical parallels. “We actually have history to show that what happens in special elections doesn’t just stay in special elections; it spills over to the midterm results,” he noted. “When a party outperformed in special elections since 2005, five out of five times they went on to win a majority in the US House of Representatives. What happened…in Tennessee is a very, very bad omen for Republicans and a very, very good omen for Democrats.” (thenation.com)
The Nation’s editorial board argues that if a 13-point swing from the 2024 presidential baseline were replicated nationally in 2026, it could flip more than three dozen GOP-held House seats, a shift comparable to the 2018 “blue wave.” Republicans currently hold only a narrow House majority, a circumstance that analysts say leaves the chamber especially vulnerable to even modest changes in voter behavior. (thenation.com)
Some Republicans have publicly voiced concern. The Nation reports that Senator Ted Cruz of Texas described the Tennessee outcome as a “dangerous” indicator that opposition to Trump has become “a powerful motivator” for voters even in traditionally red states. (thenation.com)
The Tennessee race was part of a broader pattern of Democratic advances in 2025. On November 4, Democrats swept gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey by wider-than-expected margins and consolidated control of the legislatures there. They also flipped seats on Georgia’s Public Service Commission and gained enough positions in Mississippi to end the Republican supermajority in the state Senate, according to The Nation’s review of the year’s elections. (thenation.com)
Local races in major cities reflected similar dynamics. Voters in Seattle and New York City elected young democratic socialists as mayors; in New York, that meant elevating Zohran Mamdani to the mayor’s office on a platform heavily focused on affordability. The Nation links those victories to a progressive economic message that emphasizes lowering the cost of living. (thenation.com)
These developments, the editorial contends, underscore how aggressive policies on affordability can boost turnout and reshape the electoral map. The Nation urges Democrats to broaden the range of districts they contest, invest in a more diverse slate of races, and campaign on a clear agenda that includes expanded healthcare access, living wages, affordable childcare modeled on initiatives in New Mexico under Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, and major housing investments. (thenation.com)
California Representative Ro Khanna, quoted in the piece, argues that Democrats must “understand the political moment we’re in” and avoid a cautious approach if they hope to translate the 2025 surge into a governing majority in 2026. (thenation.com)
