Inside Elections:
“Throughout 2017 and into early 2018, election watchers kept seeing the same movie over and over: Special elections in heavily Republican areas were way closer than they had any right to be, as Donald Trump’s presidency galvanized Democratic voters and put several normally safe Republican districts into play. Eight years later, Trump is back in the White House and once again generating intense backlash: Democrats are overperforming in special elections to an even greater extent than they did in 2017-18. But with only four federal special elections in the books so far this year, unlike during Trump’s first term, we have yet to see a truly competitive race develop.
That could change on December 2. That’s the date of the special election in Tennessee’s 7th District, a solidly Republican seat that could nevertheless have just enough Democratic voters to make things interesting. The campaign to replace former Rep. Mark Green, who resigned from Congress for an unspecified opportunity in the private sector, has been quiet so far, but that is about to change with both parties’ primaries coming up on October 7. And after the big elections in New Jersey, Virginia, and California in November, watch for this Nashville-area district to take center stage.”