Former Republican staffer Brendan Buck on MS NOW on December 3, 2025

When a special election for a U.S. House of Representatives seat in Tennessee's 7th Congressional District was held on Tuesday, December 2, Democrats didn't realistically expect their candidate, Aftyn Behn, to defeat GOP nominee Matt Van Epps. And she didn't: Van Epps won by roughly 8.5 percent, according to the New York Times.

But Democratic strategists were paying close attention to the margins, and 8 percent wasn't a huge win in light of the fact that Donald Trump carried that district by 22 percent in the 2024 presidential election.

During an appearance on MS NOW the following day, conservative GOP insider Brendan Buck — once a top aide to former House Speakers John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) — argued that even though Van Epps won, he underperformed considering TN-07 is a deep-red district. And he stressed that between the December 2 election and all the Democratic victories in the November 4 elections, there are plenty of warning signs for members of his party.

"I think Republicans need to wake up. We are losing, basically, every special election," Buck told MS NOW host Chris Jansing. "The president's approval rating is at historic lows, and people are focused on cost of living. And we don't have a great answer for that right now. And we can't keep our keep our head in the sand, and it feels like that's where the party is headed right now."

"I hope it's a wake-up call. I'm not confident that it's going to be," Buck continued. "I think people are going to say all is fine, but it's very clear that all is not fine. And if we don't do something different, we're going to lose the House."

Jansing noted that even though she lost, Behn was in a "celebratory" mood on December 2 — as a single-digit loss was a strong performance for a Democrat in a district that's so overwhelmingly Republican.

Buck told Jansing, "Republicans spent a lot of money in this race, and they were running against a woman who is far to the left of that district. I mean, she's not the sort of moderate you usually see in a special election who over-performed. She was proudly progressive. So there are a lot of seats that Trump would have won by ten points that you wouldn't normally think are in play that we now need to be thinking about."

Watch the segment below:

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