Republican Matt Van Epps hung on to a House seat in a Tennessee district President Donald Trump easily won one year ago, a warning about the GOP’s deteriorating political position and a disappointment to Democrats who had spent millions hoping to deliver a major psychic blow to the party in power.

Van Epps, a combat veteran, defeated liberal activist-turned-state lawmaker Aftyn Behn in a special election race that came to symbolize how bad things could get for the GOP in next year’s midterm elections as Trump’s popularity continues to suffer and voters rebel over a high cost of living. Trump won the seat by 22 percentage points in 2024, but internal polls for both parties consistently showed a much tighter contest.

As of 10 p.m. Tuesday, Van Epps was leading Behn by just nine percentage points, a 13-point shift from Trump’s performance in 2022.

The result is nonetheless alarming for Republicans because of how much still went well for them: Beyond the seat the pair were competing for, which was gerrymandered to be deeply Republican, Van Epps was seen as a strong candidate and Behn as a somewhat weak one. Republicans also got the high voter turnout they were hoping for, with nearly as many ballots cast as in the 2022 midterms, diluting Democrats’ advantages among high-turnout voters.

Yet, the political ground still shifted beneath their feet.

“This is one of the biggest flashing red light warning signs we’ve seen yet for Republicans,” GOP operative Matt Whitlock wrote on social media, noting a similar shift next November would mean Democrats picking up a whopping 43 GOP-held seats. (Such a uniform shift is unlikely, but Democrats will likely need to win only a handful of GOP-held seats to take the House.)

Many Democrats seemed happy to celebrate their moral victory.

“The fact that Republicans spent millions to protect this Trump +22 district and still lost so much ground should have the GOP shaking in their boots. Democrats are all gas and no brakes as we head into next year, organizing everywhere and competing in elections across the country,” said Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin.

“The fact that this is even a close race, potentially a single-digit race, whatever the outcome, in and of itself is extraordinary and reinforces the point that Republicans are on the run because they’ve been complete and total failures, and the American people know it,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on MS NOW on Tuesday night.

In the short term, the victory will also deliver a tiny amount of breathing room for House Speaker Mike Johnson and the razor-thin GOP House majority, which will stand at 220-213 after Van Epps is sworn in. Future special elections and the pending retirement of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene will almost certainly shrink the margin to 219-215 early next year.

But the swing towards Democrats could still persuade other Republicans, already staring down the possibility of life in the House minority, to retire or even leave office early.

“If our victory margin is single digits, the conference may come unhinged,” one senior House Republican told Politico earlier on Tuesday.

Trump endorsed and held rallies for Van Epps, a young combat veteran who Republicans and Democrats alike saw as a competent and scandal-free candidate. Democratic groups, including a super PAC controlled by allies of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, aired ads slamming him for supporting the unpopular GOP budget bill and opposing the release of the Epstein files.

“Van Epps wants three things: cuts to health care benefits, more tariffs driving up costs, tax breaks for billionaires,” a narrator says in an ad from HMP, the PAC controlled by Jeffries’ allies.

Democratic outside groups spent about $2.3 million on ads for the race, compared to $3.1 million from Republican groups, including MAGA, Inc., a super PAC controlled by Trump allies. That’s far less than what was spent on high-profile special elections during the 2018 midterm cycle when Trump was in office, when outside groups spent $13 million on a special election in western Pennsylvania.

The relative lack of spending reflects, in part, the size of the challenge facing Democrats. But it was also quietly an acknowledgment Behn was not seen as an ideal candidate for the district. As a liberal activist, she had a robust social media presence for the GOP to mine for attacks – including sarcastic comments bemoaning bachelorette parties in Nashville and harsh criticisms of Tennessee’s racist past. A clip of her saying “I’m a very radical person” was featured in seemingly every GOP ad.

“Aftyn Behn not only joined and praised ‘defund the police’ liberals, Aftyn Behn bragged about harassing law enforcement,” a narrator said in an ad from Conservatives for American Excellence as images of Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.) appeared onscreen. “If we don’t vote, they win,” the narrator also warns in the ad, as an image of Behn standing next to a drag queen appears onscreen.

Behn’s loss quickly became grist for the Democratic Party’s intra-party ideological squabbles. Third Way, a center-left think tank, suggested a more centrist candidate could have triumphed.

“Because of the politically toxic positions she’s taken, the Behn campaign ran with anvils weighing them down,” said Lanae Erickson, the group’s senior vice president for social policy, education and politics. “Yet far-left groups continued to tout her as the model for how to win elections, saying, ‘This is what happens when voters get a candidate running unapologetically on bold progressive economics.’” (The quote comes from a Facebook post from the progressive group Our Revolution.)

At the same time, the race drew involvement from some of the biggest names in politics. Former Vice President Kamala Harris appeared at an event for Behn, and Ocasio-Cortez headlined her closing tele-rally. Trump and Johnson campaigned for Van Epps, though Trump declined to hold a public rally in the district.

“The whole world is watching Tennessee right now, and they’re watching the district,” Trump said on Monday as part of a seemingly successful all-out GOP blitz to encourage turnout that also included the Republican National Committee sending staffers to the state and working with the state GOP to send money on direct mail in the district.

The seat became open after the sudden retirement of Rep. Mark Green earlier this year.

Republicans will be heavily favored to hold the seat in November 2026. Statements from party leaders after Van Epps’ victory congratulated the candidate but notably avoided declarations about what his victory could mean for the midterms.

“Congratulations to Congressman-elect Matt Van Epps on his victory!,” National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Rich Hudson said. “As a West Point graduate and combat veteran, Tennesseans know they can trust Van Epps to fight for their safety, security, and prosperity.”