Now I’m getting nervous about the special election in Tennessee
These special elections and/or off-year elections have been going especially poorly. This one in Tennessee should be an easy win for the Republican, but polls say it’s not:
Special elections are notorious for yielding unexpected results because they tend to draw only the most politically engaged voters, a pattern that generally favors Democrats. All eyes are on Tuesday’s fight for the House seat vacated by Republican Rep. Mark Green in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, who retired in July. The 7th District, which is “located in central and western Tennessee, stretches from Kentucky to Alabama, and includes parts of Nashville.”
The stakes are high as Republicans seek to preserve their already narrow 219–213 majority in the House. Even by special election standards, the polls should not be this tight in such a reliably red state, which explains why both parties have poured significant resources into this contest.
Fears of an upset in this race increased after an Emerson poll released on Wednesday showed liberal Tennessee state Rep. Aftyn Beyn, the Democratic candidate, within 2 points of her Republican opponent, Mark Van Epps. President Donald Trump carried the district by 22 points last November.
Perhaps the poll is wrong – it certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Then again, recent special election and general election polls were wrong, too – in the direction of not giving the Democrats as much of a lead as they actually ended up getting when the votes were in. Tennessee’s Aftyn Beyn is a leftist somewhat in the mold of AOC, and should be far behind in the race. She’s not.
And why do special elections seem to favor Democrats so heavily? After all, people on the right certainly know the dangers of electing someone on the left. Yes, I’m aware that many on the right are perennially displeased with the GOP in Congress. But do they really think they’ll like a Democrat majority there?
“Western Tennessee” includes Memphis, the city that is more than 60% black, and is thus hardly representative of the entire state.
Aftyn Beyn is a revolting creature. Her peculiar name indicates a nutty leftist upbringing.
This district goes nowhere near Memphis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee's_7th_congressional_district
According to Wikipedia the 7th district is:
69.4 % White, 15.8% Black, 7.4% Hispanic with a $79,222 Median household income.
Never ever underestimate boredom in the electorate.
Part of the problem is that as the GOP coalition has shifted to more white and non-white working class people, and fewer MC and UMC whites, we are losing people who are intrinsically highly motivated to vote but have not yet built the infrastructure such as poll watchers, phone bankers, and transporters that will get the voters inclined to support us to the polls.
Memphis is in the 9th Congresssional district. This district is represented in the House by one Steven Cohen, a white Jewish Democrat. Memphis itself is >60% black.
Maybe you should consider that voting doesn’t work very well in a government that has no true checks and balances. Couple that with a Socialist party that is Never-Trump and you get poor election results.
Where can one get an honest poll? I would like to see the card-carrying members of the UK’s Conservative Party explain why Labor absolutely killed it in the last election, even though people generally hate them. How do they like them now?
The consensus was, at the time, that Conservatives had broken virtually every single promise that they had made, so voters decided that this, finally was enough to cast them out.
Translating to the USA: Donald Trump’s biggest promise was to secure the border. Has he done this?
Current polling in Britain suggests that if you held an election today, Reform UK would get about 310 seats, Labour about 145, the Liberal Democrats about 70, Conservatives about 40, the Scottish Nationalists about 35, the Greens about 6, and other regional parties about 18.
Primaries are where most election fraud occurs. Special elections are not far behind.
Creating extra ballots for ballot stuffing is much easier when only one race has to be printed and marked. The effect of a flying squad of repeat voters at different polls has more weight. Fewer people actually bother, so impersonating any given voter is much less likely to be caught.
Dems cheat. It’s who they are.
If you’re actually mystified, it’s only because you weren’t paying attention. The right’s votes were split between the Conservatives and Reform, while Labour held on to most of the left’s votes. Most Labour MPs failed to win a majority in their riding; averaging over the country you got something very like 40:30:30 Labour:Tory:Reform.
Reform did well for a new party, in large part because the Tories had held the Prime Minister’s job for over a decade and yet failed to actually accomplish almost anything that they’d been elected on. Considering that Parliament is unrestrained by things like a written constitution, it’s easy to see why the electorate was unhappy with voting for the right and getting the left’s policies, if (maybe) a little slower.
Republicans are in the FAFO stage of electoral politics. Trump is a fighter 24/7 (but seems to say stupid on an almost daily basis) while most Republican politicians are passive at best.
James Sisci ee Trump– you rely on the corrupt propaganda nedia too much.
As buddhaha says, Dems have a business model that depends on ballot stuffing. Cf, rge over 20 years Soros plan to capture all SoS offices to ensure Dem victory in any close race. Cf, the wucked witcges un Michigan and Arizonaand Colorado. All beneficiaries of Soros money and training.
his district includes NOT a part of Memphis, but a chunk of Nashville. And l8ebmost every city, large parts are Left strongholda
The R party is now populist, and depends on charismatic leadership to get around the lugen presse. Low turnout constituents make Special Election quite vulnerable, when oterwis3 normies can be moved to hate the evil Dems and get out to vote.
We saw all this happen before, during Trumps first term as President. Feel the Dejavu.
Aftyn is practically a caricature of an AWFL*.
Unfortunately this cohort will have more and more sway in our politics until and unless current demographics change (see Zohran Mamdani). I don’t think it was intentional, but the Democrats lucked into a very powerful and effective strategy; politicizing women’s maternal instincts. We have a generation of women convinced breeding is wrong, especially with men, who have to find an outlet for their natural drive to nurture and protect and are throwing that drive into politics.
* From the Urban Dictionary:
When just shy of 1/2 of the US voting population cast a vote for Kamala “Cackling” Harris (arguably the dumbest, stupidest, most ignorant presidential candidate in US history), and NY and Seattle just voted in communists for mayor, and folks in Chicago (and other cities) REPEATEDLY vote in mayors who continue to maintain (or double down) on policies that have years of proven failure, ….etc. etc…… then why is anyone surprised that some wacko, perhaps even mentally ill individual – who never in her entire life held a real job – may become the new mayor of Nashville.
It is the voters of this nation that will seal its fate.
You can never tell what will happen, but I’m not too worried about Aftyn Behn. I don’t think she’s getting much support from the Democrats.
She was on CNN this morning with Manu Raju and he was not very friendly towards her. He asked, since she’s aligned herself with AOC, if was she of the same belief that ICE needed to be demolished. She tried to deflect and change the subject, but he came back and hit her with a yes/no version of the question. She ended up mumbling something about making sure the Feds didn’t over step their bounds.
She was also asked about her defund the police stance and she had to back track on that. Then the audio of her saying that she hated Nashville and that Tennessee was full of racists came up. Contrast that with Amy Klobuchar, on earlier with Dana Bash, whinging for 5 minutes about Trump saying mean things regarding Somalis, Minnesota, and calling Tim Walz “severely retarded”. No mention from Dana about the fraud case.
Off year elections usually favor the party out of power, especially if the party in power has a trifecta (White House, Senate and House) plus the Supreme Court.
No witchcraft needed. 😉
BJ,
Yes, maybe, but, like Mamdani, Aftyn is disconcerting. It’s not so much that there is a D in front of her name, but how unqualified and unserious she is. We’ve seen a disturbing trend of underqualified mayors in major, U.S. cities who are more concerned with pushing and protecting ineffective agendas than helping the citizens they are elected to serve. She stated in an interview that she “hates” Nashville.
@Rufus,
“So you didn’t shadow Firefly?”
“Yeah, we did, boss.”
“On what day?”
“Shadowday!”
OK, jokes aside, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next election, but keep in mind that you, me, and Neo (and most of the readers on this blog, as well as others) are political junkies: most of the public doesn’t have the in-depth knowledge and strategic thinking that we do. If this was baseball, 95% of the people would be enjoying the game, while we would be huddled together, comparing stats and arguing over the best way for the team at bat to earn runs.
So yeah, if the Democrats had the House, or the Supreme Court, what Behn says would matter more, and to more voters. But the Dems are completely locked out of federal power, and being in the wilderness tends to make a party’s voters angry and more cohesive in their anger. They may not care what Behn says, only that she has a “D” by her name, and voting “D” is one of the few legal ways to strike back at the GOP, who hold all the power in Washington.
Now, the fact that she said that about Nashville (and not, say, a political rival) may mean her defeat. We’ll see…
Talking head on MSNOW this evening says that the special election in Tennessee will “test the strength of the Blue Wave”.
I have a distinct feeling they expect to lose.
But don’t get cocky! If you’re in Tennessee, go vote!
”I’m aware that many on the right are perennially displeased with the GOP in Congress. But do they really think they’ll like a Democrat majority there?”
That’s what all of the talk about the Uniparty gets you.
MSNOWJOB, more likely…
– – – – – – –
“…ineffective agendas…”
Ah, Rufus, you have a way with words!
I live and vote (and early voted) in the 7th District, and like so many others have been horrified by the closeness of this race. Among other things, Behn had to be physically removed Thursday by armed guards from the state legislature. She’s bad, bed news.
I do think Epps will eek by to take the District, because the Republican powers that be are pulling out the heavy artillery in these last days and hours. But nothing can be taken for granted, now and next year.
Nashville resident but not in this district. IMO, it will all depend on who is motivated to go to the polls. There are too many voters who are going to vote for her as a vote against the “convicted racist pedophile and his billionaire buddies”. There is no reasoning with people, especially young mostly childless unmarried women, who believe the quote is true.
It wasn’t that long ago, i.e., during the Obama administration, that the high propensity voters who show up in special elections and mid-terms were overwhelmingly Republican. This gave the GOP a big advantage in races like this one.
In the age of Trump, that trend seems to have flipped. Again, I doubt that Trumpism has been a good deal for the GOP. It has caused the party to hemorrhage its traditional educated suburban voters who always came through in midterms and special elections in favor of new MAGA voters who, for the most part, can’t be bothered to turn out unless Trump is on the ballot. Even then, against arguably the three weakest nominees in the history of the Democratic party, Trumpism has yielded one loss to a walking corpse and two nail-bitingly close victories.
If a critical mass of GOP primary voters fail to recognize this and do something about it, the post-Trump bottoming out is going to be brutal.
Again, I doubt that Trumpism has been a good deal for the GOP.
Bauxite:
Yet Trump won the swing states, the popular vote, and now has majorities in the Senate, House and Supreme Court.
He has peeled off large numbers of blacks, hispanics and the working-class to vote Republican. He has shifted the direction of the country on DEI and immigration. He is making unheard of advances in bringing government spending under control. He defanged Iran’s nuclear threat. He’s got J.D. Vance and Rubio cued up as successors.
What other candidate could have put the GOP in this position? Would the GOP have been better off with Harris in the White House because she’s not Trump?
Trump isn’t perfect. He can be annoying. He does fire up opposition. But from where I sit, originally opposed to Trump, these developments are overwhelmingly positive for the GOP and the country.
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Even if Trump fires up 50 million Democrats, as long as he also fires up 55 million Republicans, we win. The problem is that when Trump is not on the ticket, the 55 million Republicans he energized don’t show up—due to complacency or a false sense of security—while the 50 million Democrats, driven by grievance or anger, still do.