Well, howdy there, internet people it spell again.

So today, we're going to talk about the special election,

takeaways, observations, and Trump.

The special election to fill Tennessee 7th District has been a much watched and waited on event. Before we get into the observations

and takeaways, let's talk about why political observers were interested. In the last election,

Trump won the very, very, very red district by 22 points. The last time the district went blue

was to Ed Jones more than 40 years ago.

The Republican in the special election only won by a little less than nine points. So initially,

it was really just of interest to political observers, not because of possible upset, but because it's a solid red district, and they would

be able to gauge how much Trump has hurt the Republican Party as a whole by comparing the

margin of victory to the 22 points Trump had. Then, the media picked up on analysts watching it

and started reporting on it.

You can't observe something without changing it.

When the parties realized it was going to be seen as a test, they started dumping money into the race.

It elevated the profile of the race.

In theory, it should have increased voter turnout, but it didn't, not in

raw numbers. There's no apples to apples special election in the 7th district for ready comparison,

but we can use the last midterm as a comparable. In 2022, there were 180,822 votes cast. In the special election,

about 181,000. With the numbers being pretty much the same, you have two options. Either a massive

amount of Trump supporters voted for a Democrat, or Trump supporters stayed home, while the Democrats were energized.

Both of these scenarios are devastating for Republicans.

A GOP strategist, Matthew Bartlett, said, quote,

...