What to watch for in Tennessee tonight: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, Steve Kornacki previews tonight’s special House election in Tennessee. Plus, Sahil Kapur reports on the lack of optimism in Congress for a deal before health insurance premiums soar.

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— Adam Wollner

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What to watch for in Tennessee tonight

Analysis by Steve Kornacki

The signs have been ominous this fall for President Donald Trump and the Republican Party: a sliding presidential job approval rating, an increasing gap against Democrats in the generic congressional ballot, and landslide gubernatorial election losses in Virginia and New Jersey.

Tonight’s special election in Tennessee’s 7th District could bring another. Republican Matt Van Epps remains favored to win the seat, but it may be far closer than his party is accustomed to. And, if the lone independent poll taken in the race is to be believed, an upset victory for Democrat Aftyn Behn isn’t entirely out of the question.

The district, which takes in some of Nashville, all of Clarksville and swaths of exurban and rural middle Tennessee, is typically a GOP bastion. Trump carried it by 22 points in 2024 and by 15 points in 2020. But Democrats have been overperforming in special elections this year, a combination of their extra-motivated base turning out disproportionately and some swing voters who’d backed Trump last year turning against him and his party. In the four previous special House elections in 2025, Democrats have posted net improvements of 16 to 22 points over last year’s presidential results.

A similar shift in Tennessee’s 7th District would bring the margin well inside single-digit territory, enough to make Republicans sweat at least. Not only would this represent another special election over-performance for Democrats, but it would also be consistent with what we saw in the run-up to the 2018 midterm election in Trump’s first term.

Then, as now, Trump’s approval rating was sagging and Democrats were showing momentum in traditionally Republican areas — most notably winning a March 2018 special election in a Pennsylvania district that Trump had carried by 23 points in 2016. That proved to be a harbinger for the blue wave of November 2018, when Democrats gained 40 House seats.

Could there be good news for Republicans tonight? If Van Epps ends up winning comfortably (by, say, a solid double-digit margin) there will be. Such a result would indicate that Republicans had succeeded in mobilizing their base and in drawing attention to the far-left positions that Behn has taken and to her inflammatory rhetoric in the past.

Even as the GOP’s troubles have mounted this fall, Democrats continue to poll poorly as a party. And Republicans are planning a 2026 campaign that ties Democratic candidates to the party’s most strident and left-wing voices. A big win tonight would give Republicans hope that this strategy might help them weather a tough environment next year.

Steve will be going live at 7:45 p.m. ET tonight to analyze the Tennessee special election results as they roll in. You can watch on our website, mobile app, and YouTube channel. The Kornacki Cam will go until an NBC News projection is made in the race.

And for more coverage, follow our live blog here →

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Hopes fade in Congress for a health care deal before premiums soar in January

By Sahil Kapur

Congress has less than a month before health insurance premiums are set to spike for millions of Americans. And hopes of a deal to mitigate the pain are fizzling among lawmakers in both parties.

“I’m not hopeful that that’s going to happen,” Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., said. “We’ll keep trying to work at it, but I’m not feeling good about it right now. … Things are not coming together like I would’ve hoped that they would.”

Peters was among a group of senators seeking a health care deal when eight Democrats voted with Republicans to reopen the government last month, ending the record-long shutdown that Democrats had forced to try to extend Affordable Care Act money.

The group of eight agreed to end the shutdown after Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., promised Democrats a vote on a health care bill of their choosing next week, a promise he reiterated Tuesday. But that would require 60 votes, and as Republicans struggle to coalesce around a proposal of their own, Thune said the two sides still aren’t close to an agreement.

“I haven’t seen yet what the Dems are proposing. I don’t think we’re close to a 60-vote threshold yet,” Thune told NBC News.

At issue are about $35 billion in subsidies under the Affordable Care Act that were passed in 2021, during the Covid pandemic, to lower premiums by capping them for “benchmark” plans at 8.5% of an enrollee’s income.

Democrats prefer a straightforward extension of the expiring ACA funds. Republicans, who control both the House and Senate, have ruled out a clean extension. But GOP leaders haven’t proposed an alternative plan to begin negotiations, as many rank-and-file Republican lawmakers want the ACA funds to end entirely.

Read more from Sahil →

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That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner.

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