Tennessee Republican Matt Van Epps this week won a special U.S. House election for a conservative district that includes part of Nashville.
The news, of course, was not that Van Epps defeated Democrat Aftyn Behn, but that he only won by nine percentage points in a district that President Trump carried by 22 a year earlier.
You can read about the race here and here.
The Tennessee race, combined with last month’s elections in Virginia and New Jersey, have strengthened the Democrats’ belief they can take the House in 2026. (Democrats also did well in last month’s North Carolina municipal races.)
If Democrats can over-perform in Tennessee, can they flip a congressional seat in purpler North Carolina?
Let’s start with the state’s new congressional map, approved this year. The GOP further gerrymandered the map to bolster their chances of winning 11 of 14 seats instead of the 10 Republicans hold today.
The only changes were in the 1st and 3rd districts:
The Democrats now hold three safe seats: the 12th, 4th and 2nd. Don Davis also represents the 1st District in the northeast, but his district was redrawn this year and made more Republican. Despite the new map, he’s running for reelection.
Here are some of President Trump’s winning margins in 2024:
- 11th District (western NC/Asheville) Trump +9.5 (Republican Chuck Edwards)
- 1st District (northeastern NC/coast) Trump +11 (Democrat Don Davis in a redrawn district)
- 3rd District (Jacksonville) Trump +13 (Republican Greg Murphy)
- 7th District (Wilmington) Trump +14 (Republican David Rouzer)
- 14th District (west Mecklenburg/Gaston) Trump +15 (Republican Tim Moore)
Even before last week’s special election in Tennessee, national Democrats said they would invest in the 11th District, hoping to defeat Republican Chuck Edwards.
There are a few reasons for Democrats to have hope in the mountains.
The 2024 election represented a great year for Republicans. Almost every N.C. county shifted to the right compared to the 2020 election. But there were a few counties that bucked that trend, including three in the 11th: Henderson (suburban Asheville), Buncombe (Asheville) and Transylvania (Brevard).
Kamala Harris picked up about two percentage points more in each county compared to Joe Biden in 2020. Is that a sign of a real shift to the left?
Here is a New York Times map of the change in results from 2020 to 2024. Areas in blue didn’t necessarily vote for Harris, but they did become more Democratic:
The Democrats may have a good candidate in Jamie Ager. There are several people running in the March primary, but Ager is considered the leader.
His grandfather, Jamie Clarke, represented the district as a Democrat in Congress for three non-consecutive terms from 1983 to 1991. His father served in the state House, and his brother Eric Ager is currently a House member.
Moe Davis, who lost to Madison Cawthorn in 2020, left the race after a bitter dispute with party leaders about alleged favoritism toward Ager.
Finally, there is Hurricane Helene recovery. Are swing voters OK with the pace of reconstruction? Or do they punish Edwards and the GOP? President Trump named Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley as the Helene “recovery czar” in January, and Democrats are going to hammer him for what they say is a lackluster recovery.
