December 1, 2025
A special election is happening in Tennessee tomorrow to fill a vacant House seat. Now – I wouldn’t normally cover this story – but there’s something very strange happening with this seat. Because the outcome could leave House Speaker Mike Johnson with a real math problem.
Ok – why am I talking about a random Tennessee special election …and more importantly – why should you be paying attention to a random tense special election? Because this race for the 7th congressional district is actually close. And it has no business being close. This is a ruby red district and the Democrat in the race –depending on which poll you look at – is only a few percentage points behind the Republican front runner. Let me be clear – this is not normal for this district.
The fact is – President Trump won the 7th congressional district in 2024 by 22 points. The Republican who currently holds the seat and is retiring –won it with 60% of the vote. This is a Republican district. Period. Full stop. So how is this Democrat making this a competitive race? Well – remember just a few weeks ago when we had those special elections in Virginia and New Jersey and Democrats swept everything up and down the ticket? Well – what we’re seeing in Tennessee could be a continuation of that. And the Republicans know it. The party is so concerned that House Speaker Mike Johnson is physically in Tennessee making multiple campaign stops with the Republican candidate and President Trump has held virtual rallies on behalf of the Republican candidate. That only happens when things are close. Now – there’s no guarantee that the Democrat in this race is going to win – and in the end she may lose. But even if this race is remotely close – it could spell a big problem for Republicans as we move into the midterms. Why?
To the math!
Right now there are 219 Republicans and 213 Democrats in the United States House of Representatives. There are three vacancies…one of those vacancies is this Tennessee seat – the other two are Democrat seats.
So – let’s assume that the Democrats are going to keep those seats after the special elections in New Jersey and Texas. That would make Democrats 215 and Republicans 219. Now for argument’s sake – let’s say the unthinkable happens and the Democrat somehow wins that Tennessee seat…now instead of 215 Democrats – now we have 216 Democrats.
That means if Speaker Johnson wants to pass a bill he would need 218 votes. Now let’s assume the bill he’s trying to pass only includes Republican priorities – that means no Democrats are going to vote yes. That means he would need to pull those 218 votes from right here. Which means, he could only lose one Republican vote and still pass that bill…which is extremely difficult and poses a real problem for Speaker Johnson.
But – there’s one more problem coming his way in January. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to be resigning her seat on January 5th. So until there is a new person elected to that seat – the Republican majority in the House is not going to be 219. It’s going to drop down to 218. So instead of that one vote that Speaker Johnson can spare – he will have zero votes to spare. Talk about a nightmare scenario for the Speaker. And that’s the nightmare he’ll deal with even before the midterm elections. If somehow that Democrat pulls off a win in Tennessee – or even if she loses by just a few points – Republicans could really be facing an uphill battle to keep the House majority after the midterms.
