The following is a lightly edited transcript of the December 4 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
On Tuesday night, in a special House election in Tennessee, the Republican candidate won by 9 points in a district that Donald Trump carried last year by 22 points. That’s a huge swing to the left. Trump is in deep denial about the meaning of these results. He called this a great victory. He’s also been raging wildly that the Democrats’ affordability message is a scam. But his allies aren’t in denial about what happened. They’re out there warning that Republicans are “underperforming” badly, that it’s time to “sound the alarm,” and that there are “flashing red warning” signs for the GOP. Amanda Litman, president of the progressive group Run for Something, has been heavily involved in many state and local elections. She’s going to walk us through all the results, what we can learn from them, and why Republicans are right to panic. Amanda, good to have you on.
Amanda Litman: Thanks for having me, Greg.
Sargent: So the Republican Matt Van Epps beat Aftyn Behn, the Democrat, by 54% to 45%—again, nine points. But that’s a swing of 13 points in the Democrats’ favor relative to 2024. According to Nate Cohn, Republicans have underperformed Trump by an average of 13 points in many state and federal special elections. That happened again here. Amanda, what’s your overall reaction to these results? What drove that swing?
Litman: People are pissed at Trump. He is not a good president. They do not like him. They do not like his policies around the economy. They do not like what is going on. They’re looking for any possible way to communicate that. And I think this election was a ripe opportunity to do so. But we’ve seen this in basically every election, both the specials and the generals throughout 2025. People are pissed, and they want to show it. Basically, every county where there was the election across Tennessee—it was a very gerrymandered district—it swung further blue by even just a couple points. That’s enough to move the margins—that 13-point swing from 2024.
Sargent: So let’s listen to CNN’s Harry Enten on this.
Harry Enten (voiceover): Republicans should be running for the hills this morning because the blue wave is building, my dear friend Mr. Berman. What are we talking about here? Well, Van Epps—Matt Van Epps, the Republican candidate—he won it by nine. But this is a district that Donald Trump won by 22 points, 15 points, 17 points. This is a 13-point gain for the Democrats in terms of the margin, and excuse time for Republicans is over because I hear all about these special elections: “Oh, the turnout’s so low. It’s not representative of what happened in the midterm election.” The turnout last night in Tennessee’s 7th District was equal to the turnout in the 2022 midterm election. When a party outperformed in special elections since 2005—five out of five times—they went on to win a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. What happened last night in Tennessee is a very, very bad omen for Republicans and a very, very good omen for Democrats.
Sargent: So we often hear that special elections aren’t predictive because turnout is very low and only the most engaged voters show up, which creates a distorted picture of what might happen in higher turnout elections. But here we got turnout that rivals a midterm and Democrats still were able to pull off this huge shift. Why did we see such turnout this time and what does it mean?
Litman: Well, we saw both sides drop millions of dollars in this election, which feels pretty unusual for a special House race this year. I also think Aftyn Behn was a pretty exciting candidate, especially in some of the more urban areas across the district. And while Matt Van Epps is a pretty run-of-the-mill Republican, Trump’s association with him and the Republican Party’s association with him, I think, fires people up who want to send a message to them.
Sargent: Can you talk a little more about what’s driving the turnout in these races?
Litman: Fury about the economy, fury about cost of living. Trump promised to lower costs, to make groceries cheaper, make housing more affordable, and he’s done none of that. People are looking at these Black Friday sales and, you know, buying fewer goods for more money. They’re buying fewer Christmas presents at higher costs. That shit sucks. And I think that sort of frustration, both in urban and rural parts of Tennessee and across the country—it makes people want to show up and vote and to make their voice heard in whatever way they can.
Sargent: Well, I’m glad you brought up costs because Trump has been pretty in denial about costs. We’ve heard him over and over in recent days rage at Democrats for bringing up affordability. He’s called it a scam. He’s called it a con. He’s called it a hoax.
President Donald Trump (voiceover): But the word affordability is a Democrat scam. They say it and then they go into the next subject and everyone thinks, they have lower prices. No, they have the worst inflation in the history of our country.
Sargent: Trump also said the following about the results in Tennessee as his sycophants applauded.
President Donald Trump (voiceover): Remember we had a great victory last night.
Sargent: Amanda, note the applause there. No one is allowed to contradict him, but we know that he’s wrong about this. This was not a great night for Republicans, was it?
Litman: No, I think it portends a really crappy midterm for them. I played the audio earlier; it seems like they could lose upwards of 40 seats in the House based on the 2024 maps. And remember, we’re not likely to get the 2024 congressional maps in 2026. We’re going to get these new ones that they’ve been drawing across the country as they push forward this mid-decade redistricting. Some of those Trump-plus-20 districts have become Trump-plus-12 or Trump-plus-10. I think they have thoroughly owned themselves going into next year. Now, I also think Trump’s brain is just Jell-O coming out of his ears. He has no idea where he is or what’s happening. That man is so sleepy and so addled and so broken. And it’s a bummer, to put it lightly, that his sycophants can’t seem to stand up to him. Although I expect we will start to see more Republicans, both in Congress and across the country, breaking with him as they realize he is both politically toxic and a lame duck.
Sargent: Well, you got to something I want to bring up, which is Republicans are trying to gerrymander these districts precisely because Trump is ordering them to and they’re not allowed to not do what he tells them to do ever, apparently. But a result like Tuesday’s should put some fear into some of these Republicans, right? If we’re talking about a 13-point shift—and again, that’s been the average; this just ratifies that this average shift is a real thing—then some of these seats, which are supposed to be safe for Republicans but are getting gerrymandered into somewhat less safe Republican seats—those will be more in danger, won’t they?
Litman: That’s absolutely right. To take a bunch of Trump-plus-20 districts and dilute them with formerly Harris-plus-15-type places, you’re going to have to make them a little bit less Republican. And in maybe a normal election they’d still be safe, but with a blue wave like we could see happening next year—and, I hope, good candidates who can really inspire voters to show up and make the case, particularly about affordability—I think they are straight-up screwed.
Sargent: Well, let me ask you about that, because there’s also the resource question. If all of a sudden you take these safe seats and put them in the firing line a little more—OK, maybe Republicans win most of them, like seats that are a little less safe for them. They still win most. But all of a sudden, they’ve got to spend a shitload of money in all these other contests that are supposed to be safe, right? I mean, that’s the thing that I think people are missing about all this: All this gerrymandering that could end up by making all these seats a little bit less safe requires them to sink huge amounts of cash into defending them. Can you talk about that?
Litman: I think that’s going to be a huge problem for them. They’re going to be expanding their battlefield exponentially. Now, the flip is also true for the Democratic side. We’re going to be able to compete in places that we maybe haven’t before. I think that’s why it’s so important that Democrats have been really intentional about building deep benches all across the country. It’s what Run for Something has been doing for most of the last decade, in part because we know that where the competitive races could be will change. They’re going to blow a lot of money. Now, they have a lot of money to blow here, so I want to be mindful of that. They have never hurt for resources in this regard. But they aren’t going to be able to make every election as hyper-nationalized as the ones that we just saw in Tennessee.
Sargent: Well, I should point out that Trump’s own allies are panicking. Representative Elise Stefanik, who’s as MAGA as they come, said that “House Republicans are underperforming for the first time in the Trump era.” GOP strategist Matt Whitlock called this “one of the biggest flashing red light warning signs we’ve seen yet.” Ted Cruz urged Republicans to sound the alarm. Now, it’s not at all true that this is the first time House Republicans have underperformed. They’ve been underperforming all through special elections all year. But still, those are pretty striking signs of panic. And Amanda, what I take from this is these are people who have been around politics a long time—Ted Cruz, Matt Whitlock, Elise Stefanik—and they know what happens in midterms. They know that the mighty Trump and the mighty MAGA aren’t immune to that—what happens in midterms. What do you take from all those quotes?
Litman: I think you’re seeing the Republican Party begin to grapple with the fact that in a year or two, they’re going to have to redefine themselves post-Trump, and it’s going to be a wide-open race for who gets to lead that party forward. He has as much as said he’s not going to be on the ballot in 2028. He constitutionally is not allowed to be on the ballot in 2028. As the party tries to figure out who can hold together the Trump coalition—which I would argue nobody can hold together the Trump coalition—we’ve seen this over and over again. The crazy shit he says might work coming from him and his brand, but it does not work for nearly anyone else. No one has that charisma, whether you like it or not, and decades of life in the public eye to sort of make it stick with folks. They’re going to have to figure their shit out, and it’s going to be messy, it’s going to be expensive, and I’m just excited to eat the popcorn and watch the show.
Sargent: Well, I’ll tell you to watch JD Vance try to imitate Trump’s thuggishness, and it really shows you that he doesn’t really have what it takes to exercise the kind of control that I think is going to be necessary. But I want to ask you a little bit more about what Stefanik and Matt Whitlock are saying. You’ve been around politics a long time. Anyone who has been knows that Republicans—their rule is to always project confidence at all times, no matter what. And so to see them openly panicking in this way is a little surprising, don’t you think?
Litman: I do. I also think it’s been interesting to watch some of the dynamics with Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House—how I believe there was yet another discharge petition that sort of circumvented his leadership and made its way to the House floor. He has no power. He is weak. Trump’s power is getting more and more limited by the week as his approval rating starts to plummet, especially with populations that he thought he had a stronghold on. He’s underwater with young people again, as he should have always been, but as he is once again. I think we are starting to see them really understand they have to begin to preemptively throw folks under the bus and separate themselves, or they’re going to get caught as the wave crashes.
Sargent: Well, we had the Washington Post also reporting that Republicans privately fear that the pool of vulnerable GOP incumbents is larger than they thought. We discussed that earlier. They also fear that Trump’s struggles with independents are a serious problem and even that the conservative base is not energized. Amanda, what did you see? What have you seen out there in the races that you’ve been part of on those fronts, particularly with independents and with the conservative base and the MAGA coalition? Can you get a little granular? What are you seeing with these voter groups?
Litman: Yeah. So Run for Something had about 144 wins in the November election. Forty-three of them were red-to-blue flips across 10 states; 70% were municipal races, 23% were school boards, 7% were state legislative. They were in districts as varied as Clarion County, Pennsylvania, where Trump won 70–30. And I’d say there’s a couple of trends we saw across those places. And these are candidates who had to win over Republicans and independents in order to win. One: affordable housing. Affordable housing, affordable housing, affordable housing. They’re talking about the need to lower the cost of housing. Two: they’re really flipping Republican-coded language on its head. They’re talking about fiscal responsibility and accountability and budgeting taxpayers’ dollars, support for public safety. One candidate really put it well: Prevention, preparation, and compassion, not fear. They’re talking about solutions, not grievances. I think that I found really interesting. And point number three is that 90% of our winning candidates in these red-to-blue flips explicitly talked about transparency and about bringing trust back into these institutions—about [how] they understand that people feel like they don’t know what’s happening with their money, with their government, that they really want to. So I think that was a really powerful thing that I hope to see more candidates glomming onto next year. We saw candidates who really loved the place they’re running and honored the place that they were running.
They love their communities. They didn’t treat them as hellholes to be afraid of or to run from or, like carnage in the streets. No, it was: I love this place, and I want to make it better. We had candidates who really talked about the lived experience they had that was relevant to folks—whether that was renters or having grown up in public housing or being caregivers—like that first-person ability to tell a story that can break through some of the partisan bullshit. We sort of jokingly were like, Better sidewalks are a winning issue. But maybe not exactly that in every community, but it sort of reflects what a winning issue is, which is local. I do think this is a challenge that congressional candidates in 2026 are going to have, which is the only thing they can really credibly promise is oversight and accountability. No, don’t get me wrong; that’s incredibly important. Like holding Trump accountable and providing oversight over his government—really, really necessary. But these local candidates are going to be able to talk about specific things they can do to make places better. Congressional candidates are going to have a tougher time.
So I do think one of our tasks for the Democratic Party writ large is to make sure that the folks who can make the credible arguments, the state and local candidates, have as big of a megaphone as possible. And the final thing I would say about the red-to-blue flips that we had is that they were really listening to voters. They were listening, reflecting, responding—which feels like so fucking obvious to say, but... man, do a lot of candidates get it wrong. A lot of candidates are listening to consultants, not to voters; listening to focus groups, not the people they’re meeting on the streets. And I think it’s in part because they don’t have a good sense of self and a good sort of set of core values, but the candidates who do are really able to knock it out of the park in long-shot races.
Sargent: So let’s talk about what could go wrong candidly. Right now we’re seeing this average 13-point swing to the left. It feels pretty good, especially after the Virginia and New Jersey results, which were really pretty solid blowouts. We saw both the candidates in those races erase the Republican advantage with non-college voters, which is really quite an achievement. But we still have almost a year to go. What keeps you up at night? What needs to happen for this to continue all the way through Election Day? And what could go wrong? What do you worry about happening that could prevent that?
Litman: There’s any number of things that keep me up at night. I think that we tend to win in spite of ourselves sometimes as a Democratic Party. I think there’s been a lot of delayed moving of money this year, if I’m being honest. There was some money moving to some of these special elections, but generally speaking, a lot of the year-round organizing, the kind of communications work, the media work, even the candidate recruitment work, like what Run for Something does… Money’s been slow. Donors have been sort of in choice paralysis or figuring out what they want to do next. They know that what we did yesterday isn’t going to work anymore, but they don’t know what we need to do tomorrow.
So I think trying to supercharge that work as soon as we can going into 2026, that keeps me up at night. The other thing I would say is that we have no idea where the economy is going to be in a year. I am not an economist. I don’t know, but all the experts seem to say probably not great. So I do think that that is a thing we should be keeping an eye on and how to make sure we can really connect the dots for people that the reason that your Christmas gifts were more expensive, that your housing costs haven’t gone down, it’s on them and on him. It’s on both Trump and the Republican Party and like really being able to tell that story in a way that connects with people.
That’s where I think the state and local candidates will have the advantage. And, you know, we know that Trump is going to try and gaslight people. We learned with Biden, this doesn’t work. You can’t piss on someone’s leg and tell them it’s raining. You can’t. Send them to the grocery store and tell them No, no, the economy is good. Actually, you have to make sure that you’re really speaking to the way that they’re experiencing their finances. And Trump’s gonna try and undermine that; we’ve got to make sure they understand the truth.
Sargent: Well, just to wrap this up. There’s this sort of shadow debate going on among Democrats over whether they should really focus on affordability or whether they should focus on Trump and attacks on democracy and the slide into authoritarian rule and so forth. I think that whole debate is a bit silly. I don’t really think that candidates have to choose between those things, but you’re on the ground, you’re involved in these races. What do you think is the way for Democrats to thread these needles? Should they talk about Trump, about the ICE raids, about the terrorizing of immigrant communities, about the lawlessness, the law breaking? Where are you on that?
Litman: I think they should talk about what their voters are talking about. They should really be listening to people about what’s on their mind. The thing we’ve heard from a lot of candidates out there knocking doors is like, yeah, they’re pissed at Trump, but really they’re pissed that their groceries are more expensive and their housing costs haven’t gone down. Yeah, they are pissed at Trump, but they’re also pissed that they have to carry whistles with them to scare ICE away from the daycare where it’s trying to kidnap kids. That really does speak to what voters are experiencing. How has this affected their day-to-day life? How has this administration hurt them? It’s not just that it’s lawlessness; it’s the lawlessness in service of what? So really making it personal, keeping it local, and not getting lost in the sauce, as it might be. We have a tendency, I think, to over-intellectualize or try and tell some bigger story. No, shit’s broken. Shit’s bad. We can fix it. We need your help, but we can fix this. Now, I think one of the challenges is that a lot of Democratic candidates maybe don’t have a story for how they want to fix it. They want to go back to the way things were before. That, I think, will not work. You cannot promise a return to the status quo. And that’s the real challenge for Democrats in 2026.
Sargent: OK. So it sounds like talking about ICE in many situations does work.
Litman: So I think it does, if that’s what voters are telling you they care about. I think that’s the thing that I would encourage every candidate that Run for Something works with to do is, like, listen to your neighbors. You know that. You know what’s on their minds. You know what they’re hearing. You know what they’re experiencing. In some places that might be ICE; in many places that might not be. You gotta know what your community needs to hear about, and you gotta reflect it back to them.
Sargent: OK, so this was a house race. You do a lot of state and local races, but you also pay pretty close attention to the house races. What do you think is going to happen in 2026 with the battle for the house?
Litman: Well, I think Democrats are going to be able to take back the House if we run really great candidates, if we rally behind people who win the primary after the primaries are over, if we ensure that races stay localized, and if we ensure that every candidate in every organization has the resources they need to communicate and organize ahead of the November election. But I think it is going to be a great year for Democrats to run for office in all kinds of places, and I would encourage anyone listening to think about it because it’s not too late to get on the ballot for next year.
Sargent: Well there you have it. People should think about running and I think results like that one this week is really going to get more people off the sidelines and really seriously consider running. Amanda Litman, always great to talk to you. Thanks so much.
Litman: Anytime. Thank you.