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While some Democrats described Aftyn Behn’s single-digit loss in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, a district that President Donald Trump won by 22 points last year, as an “overperformance,” a team of Democratic researchers and analysts called the special election a “missed opportunity” for the party.
Republican Matt Van Epps defeated Behn by about 9 percentage points on Tuesday, closing out a high-profile special election to replace former Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn. Despite losing, Democrats said Behn’s inroads in the ruby-red district — along with November’s gubernatorial wins in New Jersey and Virginia — proves their party is “on the offense.”
This is where Welcome, a pro-Democratic Party organization, disagrees. In an October report entitled “Deciding to Win,” they cautioned their fellow party members that far-left positions are turning off voters. And on Wednesday, they poured cold water on the echo chamber that framed Behn’s loss as a win.
“The point is to win,” said Liam Kerr, co-founder of Welcome when asked by Fox News Digital about the Tennessee election results. “Running a far-left candidate clearly did not put Democrats in the best position to win.”
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Kerr and his colleagues argued in the “Deciding to Win” report that Democrats should moderate their positions on identity politics and cultural issues while embracing affordability, border security and public safety ahead of competitive midterm elections expected next year.
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“Aftyn Behn was a missed opportunity,” Simon Bazelon, a research fellow at Welcome and a lead author of the report, said in a statement following Behn’s loss. “Republicans were unusually vulnerable, but the right message isn’t enough with the wrong track record. Democrats in red districts can’t just talk about affordability and hope voters don’t notice they walk left on everything else.”
Behn, a state representative and former healthcare community organizer, told supporters at a local Democratic Party office in Nashville on Tuesday morning that “whatever happens, win or lose, you’ve inspired a country. You’ve shown people the South has something to say.”
“For me, we’ve already won over the hearts and minds of so many Tennesseans and across the country,” Behn told Fox News Digital minutes later when asked if she’s a winner even without an election victory. “What starts here changes this country.”
Despite Behn running an effective affordability campaign fueled by grassroots support and a savvy social media presence, Bazelon said that “Republicans will make sure the voters know” if Democratic candidates do not match their district.
In the final days of her campaign, Behn dodged accountability for her past comments, including those calling to dissolve the Nashville police department, and was plagued by a resurfaced clip where she lamented that she hated Nashville.
“I hate the city, I hate the bachelorettes, I hate the pedal taverns, I hate country music, I hate all of the things that make Nashville apparently an ‘it’ city to the rest of the country. But I hate it,” Behn said in a 2020 podcast.
“Despite a well-run race and significant investment, Tennessee voters knew Aftyn Behn did not share their views,” Bazelon said.
Elaborating on Bazelon’s critique, Kerr told Fox News Digital that it was “obvious that her stances on immigration and crime that are so out of step with the broad American public, not to mention a red district like Tennessee’s 7th, would come back to haunt her and make it almost impossible for her to win.”
“It’s not just that she’s out of step with the district, she’s completely out of step with the American public on crime and immigration,” the Democratic strategist said, in light of the resurfaced clip of Behn “bullying” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
While Republicans relentlessly focused on Behn’s past comments in the lead-up to Election Day, high-profile national Democrats, including former Vice Presidents Kamala Harris and Al Gore and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., campaigned for the “AOC of Tennessee.”
And while Democrats were successful in firing up the far-left base who are fed up with Trump’s sweeping, second-term agenda, Kerr said that momentum isn’t enough to deliver a win.
“Persuasion is a way to turn people up,” he said. “Only trying to turn out your base is not a recipe for success, and so replicating what happened in November, not what happened in December, means persuading people who have supported President Trump in the past to pull the lever for a Democrat.”
Kerr described the recipe for Democratic success in the 2026 midterm elections as nominating “conservative Democrats,” and explained that Govs.-elect Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill won, in part, because they are “hard to caricature as leftists.”
“We need centrist democrats to more aggressively intervene to bring the party back to where the American public is, particularly in red districts,” he said, describing Behn as “not just the fringe” but the “fringe of a fringe” candidate for the Democratic Party.
Moving forward, Kerr said the “achilles heel for the Democratic Party” will be the “myth that you can just talk about affordability and forget your extreme, unpopular positions, and that they won’t be raised to voters.”
While Welcome’s Democratic strategists are urging candidates back to the center in hopes of winning back the House and Senate in 2026, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee both took Tuesday night’s results as proof the party is on the “offense” – despite losing.
“Tonight’s election results prove exactly what the DCCC has known all along – Democrats are on offense not just in the standard swing districts but in red terrain across the country. Our expansive battlefield shows that Democrats are ready to fight in rural districts, in Latino communities, in Trump country, and everywhere in between. House Republicans are officially on notice – Democrats are taking back the majority in 2026,” DCCC Spokesperson Madison Andrus said in a statement.
Meanwhile, DNC Chair Ken Martin called the win “historic and a flashing warning sign for Republicans heading into the midterms,” by centering her campaign on affordability.
“Democrats are all gas and no brakes as we head into next year, organizing everywhere and competing in elections across the country,” Martin said.
Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
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