If you’re a Republican, you can explain away the troubling results of last week’s special election in Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District any way you want. But what about the dozens of other special elections in 2025 that saw your party underperform?

And that’s the problem for the GOP.

The 13-percentage-point shift toward the Democratic Party in Tennessee’s 7th, a ruby red seat anchored in Nashville, compared to the outcome there in 2024, wasn’t just a one-off that can be dismissed as a fluke, or the result of voter disinterest or lower turnout — as happens from time to time with mid-cycle special elections. Nope.

What happened in the Volunteer State is part of a pattern; a grim pattern if you’re a Republican, but one that has Democrats smiling from ear to ear as they angle to recapture the House and take a stab at putting the U.S. Senate in play in the 2026 midterm elections.

This year, from coast to coast, in roughly five dozen special elections for seats in Congress and in statehouses, Republican candidates underperformed President Donald Trump’s numbers by an average of 13 points — the same shortfall that characterized the GOP’s win in Tennessee 7.

In other words, rather than matching Trump’s 60% to 38% 2024 victory in the district over Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, the Republican nominee, now-Representative Matt Van Epps, managed only a 54% to 45% win over a progressive arguably more left-wing than the former vice president, Democrat Aftyn Behn.

Nonpartisan political handicapper Kyle Kondik told me that what we’re witnessing is reminiscent of what occurred ahead of the midterm elections during Trump’s first presidency. “I do think that 2025’s results have been similar to 2017’s, and the specials — and the November elections — are reflective of a poor electoral environment for Republicans,” explained Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

In 2018, this similarly poor electoral environment fueled a blue wave that saw Democrats flip 40 House seats and wrest control of the chamber from the GOP.

Nevertheless, Republicans are attempting to project calm and confidence.

Trump called Van Epps’ ascension to Congress a “great night” for the GOP, noting, accurately, in a Truth Social post that Democrats invested heavily in Behn, only to come up short. “The Radical Left Democrats threw everything at” Van Epps, is how the president put it. House Speaker Mike Johnson downplayed Van Epps’ narrower victory margin compared to Trump’s commanding win in the district 13 months earlier. “I’m not concerned at all,” the Louisiana Republican said, when a reporter asked him about the implications for next year.

Johnson can be forgiven the political spin. He’s trying to hold together a majority that now numbers a paltry 220 seats — including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has announced she plans to resign from the House in January. But the speaker was on target about one thing: “Special elections are odd things.”

Historically, turnout in these mid-cycle contests is not only lower than normal compared to midterm and presidential elections, but the makeup of the electorate can be much less predictable. Over the years, that has led to outcomes that do not fit the partisanship of a particular congressional or state legislative district.

That has meant that special elections are imperfect political weathervanes. Indeed, sometimes, they can be downright lousy forecasters of upcoming midterm elections. Plus, as Kondik highlighted in our exchange, these days, Democratic voters are more likely than Republicans to participate in irregularly scheduled special elections.

And so, if this discussion was only about the results in Tennessee 7, Johnson might have a point. Or at least, his argument might be more compelling. But with this year’s special elections for House seats now behind us, this is about a consistent pattern throughout the first year of Trump’s second term — a pattern that has seen the Democrats significantly improve on their 2024 margins in the four such contests held prior to last week’s in Tennessee. Per a handy chart put together by NBC News’ Steve Kornacki, the average movement toward the Democrats in those four specials was 18 points.

Nathan Gonzales, a nonpartisan political prognosticator in Washington who has been covering congressional races for more than two decades (and who I worked with years ago at Roll Call), confirmed to me that this is, in fact, something for Republicans to be concerned about.

“We’ve learned from 2025 that it’s not 2024 anymore,” said Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. “It’s easy to dismiss single special elections or single races. But when you look at both the congressional special elections combined with the 2025 regular general elections, Democrats are overperforming across the board.”

“Margins matter,” Gonzales continued. “We’ve learned from the past that even special election victories can be ominous for a party.”

The midterm elections are almost 11 months away. Between now and then, the cost of living might yet decline and voters’ perceptions of the economy might yet improve. But nothing we’ve seen in the special elections held this year should give Republicans comfort that they’re on their way to sunnier political skies. And that includes the fact that the GOP has won every special congressional election held this year in a district that Trump carried in 2024.

Sometimes winning isn’t enough.

_____

This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

David M. Drucker is a columnist covering politics and policy. He is also a senior writer for The Dispatch and the author of "In Trump's Shadow: The Battle for 2024 and the Future of the GOP."

_____

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com/opinion. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.