BACK TO THAT TENNESSEE SPECIAL ELECTION ONE MORE TIME:
Some will be mad at me for this but I say it out of love for our country… We won the TN special election by less than we should have.
If you’ve been to this area, you know it should have been a blowout. And this isn’t a knock on Matt Van Epps. He had lower name ID to begin with…
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) December 3, 2025
Key takeaway: “We need to right the ship or voters will sink our ship in 2026. Enthusiasm from 2024 is gone. The blind trust is gone. They want action. The people in Congress need to realize that they aren’t Trump and he isn’t there to carry them on the ballot in 2026. They need to deliver now. And even then we likely have to run ‘26 like a Presidential election with Trump going around the country.”
A special election with a radical and unappealing Dem in an R+10 district should have been a blowout, but Democrats are angry and energized — while the RNC seems largely oblivious. The RNC needs to wake up, because not even Trump can be everywhere and do everything.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): A friend writes:
You know what I think people are missing about the special election in TN? Not unlike NYC, Nashville is now filled with both 20somethings who really cannot afford to live there and are susceptible to all this affordability nonsense and blue state migrants who are gonna import their politics. Both are more highly motivated to vote in these special elections. As for the former: elite overproduction is a thing. Lots of these 25 yo folks who hit all the marks and got their NYU degree are pissed when they look around and see some dude who went to Alabama or Tennessee and studied accounting or see trades people earning more than they are tending bar. Then I think their impulse is to go into politics and figure out how to expropriate it.
Yes.