Republican Matt Van Epps will end up winning the special election in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District by about 9 percentage points.

That might sound like a solid win. Except that Tennessee-7 is a solidly Republican district. Both Donald Trump and the representative whose resignation triggered the election carried the 7th by more than 20 percentage points.

Some polls close to the vote indicated that the Democrat, Aftyn Behn, was within 3 points of Van Epps. So those of you who read that – and little else – might believe that she didn’t do well.

Baloney. Behn took a cue from Zohran Mamdani in New York and ran on the affordability issue. It helped her wipe out more than half the usual margin in the district.

A district, I might add, that was totally rigged against her.

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I don’t remember Ken Burns’ outstanding “The American Revolution” series mentioning Founding Father Elbridge Gerry. He merely signed the Declaration of Independence and then helped supply the Patriot armies.

Unfortunately, in his old age, he became a staunch partisan. As governor of Massachusetts, he approved legislative boundaries that showed favoritism to his Democratic-Republican Party, leading to the term “gerrymandering.”

So Gerry figures prominently in the politics of the nation he helped create more than two centuries later.

Because Tennessee – once home to such noted Democrats as Estes Kefauver and the Gore family – is now a solid red state. And the reactionaries who funded the long game that is Republican politics have ensured the party’s success by making it almost impossible for Democrats to win Congressional seats. Thank you, Mr. Gerry.

So Behn’s 9-point loss, while not a win for the Democrats, is likely to make Republicans very nervous. If the Democrats wipe 12 points off Republican margins around the country next year, the House will almost certainly flip – and the Senate might as well.

That’s why you’re seeing all this nonsense with creating more Republican districts in states like Texas, Indiana and Missouri – and why California countered with Prop. 50, Gavin Newsome’s so-far successful effort to bolster Democrats.

As a believer in democracy, I think gerrymandering sucks. As President Obama often says, voters should pick legislators and not the other way around.

But unilateral disarmament is a problem. So, yeah, while it goes against my core belief, I think New York, Virginia and Illinois need to join California in reshaping legislative maps. I’ve given up on the idea of expecting Republicans to ever do what’s right.

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Gerrymandering isn’t the only way the Republicans will try to hold onto power. They might also plan to give you money.

I think that sometime before November 3, 2026, the Republicans will try to buy your love with something they’ll call a tariff dividend – the money collected by tacking these ridiculous surcharges onto things we buy from countries that don’t kiss Trump’s butt.

Maybe it will be about $2,000. It will be a check and the biggest letters on it won’t be your name. They will be PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP.

If you don’t throw it out thinking it’s a campaign mailing, make sure you cash it. But don’t, for a moment, think that you’re coming out ahead.

The tariffs and the inflation they’ve triggered have already cost you way more than whatever amount these putzes are going to send you.

Unfortunately, it will work somewhat. In 2024, many voters remembered those checks aimed at stemming economic disaster during COVID – checked they thought originated with Trump because he insisted that his name be put on them, even though the idea came from Democrats in the House.

You always think fondly of people who give you money. I wish I could say I’m going to take the money and put it toward an organization whose mission has suffered from the devastation Trump and his sycophants have wreaked on our country. 

But, like you, I’m going to be hurting financially. I’m a senior citizen, living on a fixed income. So I’ll cash the check. And I won’t forget why I’m in the spot I’ll be in.

I thank Aftyn Behn for running a strong, positive campaign. Some of the ideas she offered might not have been well received by Tennesseans a year ago. But now, with the real economy faltering and our country becoming a hermit, they got a fair hearing from those not completely swallowed up by MAGAdumb.

Maybe, in November, no amount of Republican connivance can change what will happen. That won’t be easy to achieve.