[Note: The basic message in the article is that the election in Tennessee should have been favouring red more but the margin was quite slim.]
"When Mark Green announced his retirement from politics, it seemed to his Republican colleagues that refilling the seat would be an easy feat.
"Tennessee, and its newly vacant 7th congressional district, were firmly red strongholds.
"In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump won the district by 22 points.
"The last time Green went to an election, almost 60 per cent of voters cast their ballots for him.
"Indeed, a Democrat had not been elected to represent the 7th district in more than 40 years.
"So when Matt Van Epps, a former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services, was chosen as the Republican candidate for the ensuing by-election, he seemed a shoo-in.
"The race did not quite pan out that way.
Van Epps did win when Tennessee went to the polls on Tuesday, but with a margin of just nine points, it did not come easy."
...
"The outcome cast a gloomy outlook for Republicans going into the 2026 mid-terms.
"Pundits say the party will need to defend more vulnerable seats than usual if they are to have any hope of keeping the House majority.
"'The danger signs are there, and we shouldn't have had to spend that kind of money to hold that kind of seat,' said Jason Roe, a national Republican strategist working on several of next year's battleground races.
"'The Democratic enthusiasm is dramatically higher than Republican enthusiasm.'
Cruz said his party had to 'set out the alarm bells' because next year was 'going to be a turnout election and the left will show up'."
So, that is a bit of good news. The Republicans will have to pull out all the stops at the mid-terms in case they lose their slim majority in the House of Representatives.