Last Tuesday, something happened in one of the reddest congressional districts in America that should terrify Republican strategists planning their gerrymandering for the 2026 midterms. In Tennessee’s 7th District, where Donald Trump won by 22 points in 2024 and outgoing Rep. Mark Green cruised to a 21-point victory, Republican Matt Van Epps scraped by with a 9-point win.

That’s a 13-point swing toward Democrats. In deep-red Tennessee. With a candidate Republicans gleefully called “the AOC of Tennessee.”

As David French wrote in the New York Times, this is what it looks like when your coalition is coming apart at the seams. French, who lived in the district until this summer, observed that the Tennessee result wasn’t about Democrats nominating someone strategically designed to appeal to Republicans. Quite the opposite. Instead, this is what happens when internal fractures become impossible to paper over.

French’s column points to something deeper than simple buyer’s remorse over Trump’s second term. He cites a Manhattan Institute poll of nearly 3,000 voters that reveals a Republican Party split into two increasingly incompatible factions.

About two-thirds of the GOP coalition are “Core Republicans,” longtime party voters who remain consistently conservative on economics, foreign policy, and social issues. They prefer cutting spending to raising taxes, see China as a threat, support Israel, and oppose DEI initiatives. These are the suburban professionals, the churchgoing families, the small business owners who’ve pulled the Republican lever for decades.

Then there’s the other 30 percent. The Manhattan Institute calls them “New Entrant Republicans,” and they look nothing like the party’s traditional base. They’re younger, more diverse, and more likely to have voted for Democrats in the recent past. Here’s where it gets uncomfortable for GOP strategists: one-third of these New Entrants believe in all or most of six conspiracy theories tested by the poll, including claims about vaccines, 9/11, and the moon landing. Only 11 percent of Core Republicans believe the same.

The Manhattan Institute findings confirm what French observed in his own community of Williamson County, Tennessee. Anti-mask activists gathered around masking proponents shouting “We know who you are” and “We will find you.” A Moms for Liberty chapter tried to ban Ruby Bridges’ autobiography from elementary schools. A far-right alderman with ties to white supremacists ran for mayor against the establishment Republican incumbent.

Each of these disputes created enmity between different Republican factions. And that enmity is personal. Core Republicans resent the extremism and cruelty of the new right. The new right is furious that Core Republicans aren’t sufficiently radicalized.

This brings us to the Republican gerrymandering 2026 midterms gambit. On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling allowing Texas to use its newly gerrymandered congressional map in the 2026 midterms, despite a lower court finding it constituted racial gerrymandering. As a result, Republicans celebrated. However, they shouldn’t have.

French’s column cuts to the heart of the problem: “If you’re basing your new maps on 2024, a year that might have the high-water mark of MAGA, you’ve presumed that you’ve realigned American politics.”

In other words, Republicans are assuming their coalition will continue to grow, or at least maintain the gains it made in 2024. But every piece of evidence suggests the opposite. For example, Latino voters, who swung toward Trump in 2024, are already swinging back. In the New Jersey governor’s race, Democrat Mikie Sherrill won back significant ground with Hispanic voters compared to Kamala Harris’s 2024 performance. Furthermore, polling shows Latinos giving Trump’s administration low marks on inflation and immigration, the very issues that brought them into the GOP coalition.

Political scientists call this risk “dummymandering,” a gerrymander that backfires because you spread your voters too thin trying to maximize seats. Notably, it happened to Texas Republicans in 2018, when they lost several poorly drawn state legislative districts in the Dallas suburbs during that year’s blue wave.

According to the Texas Tribune, four of the five districts Republicans drew to flip are majority-Hispanic. Historically, majority-Hispanic districts have been reliable Democratic territory. Consequently, Republicans are betting that Trump’s 2024 gains with Latino voters will hold. That’s a dangerous assumption when polls show Latino approval of Trump’s handling of the economy and immigration cratering. The entire Republican gerrymandering 2026 midterms strategy depends on voters behaving as they did in November 2024.

Here’s what makes this moment significant for the veteran Democrat strategy. Because of Republican gerrymandering for the 2026 midterms, dozens of districts now have tighter margins than they’ve had in years, based on assumptions about voter behavior that are already proving wrong. Therefore, these districts need candidates who can peel away persuadable voters.

As Rep. Jason Crow, a former Army Ranger leading House Democrats’ recruitment efforts, put it: “People with national security backgrounds are uniquely positioned to have conversations with voters that may not entertain voting for a traditional Democrat.” In essence, veterans don’t trigger the same partisan antibodies that career politicians do. When voters see a veteran, they don’t automatically see “Democrat” or “Republican.” Instead, they see someone who put country before party.

Democrats are already running at least 17 veterans in competitive Republican-controlled districts, with party officials eyeing 30 more potential candidates. This includes Cait Conley, a former Army Special Operations officer challenging Rep. Michael Lawler in New York; Rebecca Bennett, a Navy helicopter pilot running in New Jersey; and Chris Gallant, a Black Hawk pilot and National Guard member running on Long Island.

The 2018 playbook is back, and for good reason. That year, Democrats recruited over 50 veterans and helped flip 41 House seats. The conditions in 2026 look even more favorable. Trump’s approval ratings are underwater. The economy remains voters’ top concern. And Republicans have drawn maps that assume their 2024 coalition stays intact.

Consider what the Republican gerrymandering 2026 midterms arms race has actually produced. Texas Republicans drew five new Republican-leaning districts, but four of them depend on Hispanic voters behaving as they did in November 2024. Meanwhile, California Democrats countered with five new Democratic-leaning districts. Additionally, Missouri and North Carolina each added a Republican seat. Virginia Democrats are also moving to add two or three Democratic seats.

When the dust settles, the net effect may be close to zero new seats for either party. However, the composition of those seats has changed significantly. Many districts that were safe are now merely lean. Similarly, districts that leaned one way now qualify as toss-ups.

Steve Kornacki’s analysis of the Tennessee special election highlighted something important. Even with a candidate as polarizing as Aftyn Behn, Democrats posted a 13-point improvement. In upscale Williamson County, however, the swing was only 7 points. Kornacki noted it’s “impossible to look at that number and not wonder if a Democrat without her baggage could have made far more meaningful inroads.”

Think about that for a moment. In the heart of Tennessee’s affluent Republican suburbs, a Democrat who once said she hates country music and bachelorettes still moved the needle. So what happens when Democrats run a Marine combat veteran who speaks the language of service, sacrifice, and country first? What happens in the Texas suburbs, or Arizona’s sprawling exurbs, or the swing districts of Michigan and Pennsylvania?

The Tennessee result also contains a warning for Democrats. Behn’s 13-point improvement was actually the smallest among 2025 special elections. By contrast, every other contest saw Democratic gains of 16-28 points. Her controversial past statements cost her votes in precisely the suburban counties where Democrats need to grow.

Clearly, candidate quality matters enormously. NBC News conducted focus groups with voters who backed Trump in 2024 and Democratic governors in 2025. Their consistent message: reject your party’s extremes and run campaigns about more than just Trump. These swing voters were drawn to Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger because both came across as moderates who transcended the damaged Democratic brand.

What do Sherrill and Spanberger have in common? Both have military and national security backgrounds. Sherrill is a former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor. Spanberger is a former CIA officer. Importantly, both won in difficult environments by emphasizing service, pragmatism, and economic solutions.

Travis Tazelaar, political director of VoteVets, explained the advantage: “The average voter looks at a veteran and doesn’t see them as a hard conservative right or a hard liberal left.” That perception creates space for conversations that would otherwise never happen.

Rahm Emanuel, who led Democrats’ successful 2006 House campaign, put it bluntly: “Because of the background and personal biography of these candidates, they get a second look from voters who normally would not give Democrats even a first look.”

Democrats need three seats to take the House. Just three. In an environment where they’re seeing 13-22 point swings in special elections, that’s the floor of expectations if they recruit the right candidates.

According to the Brookings Institution, if the 2024 baseline remained intact, Democrats would need to win only 3 of the 15 Republican seats decided by less than 5 points. However, if Texas’s gerrymander adds 5 seats to the Republican baseline, Democrats would need to win 8 of those competitive seats. Although that’s harder, it’s not impossible if current trends continue.

If Republicans really did create a dummymander in Texas and elsewhere, the math could actually work in Democrats’ favor. More Republican-leaning districts with narrower margins means more targets if there’s a significant blue shift. Ironically, the Republican gerrymandering 2026 midterms strategy could create more opportunities, not fewer.

David French closed his column with a proverb from Solomon: “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Republicans looked at 2024 and saw permanent realignment. They drew maps accordingly. They assumed Hispanic voters would stay in their coalition. They assumed Core Republicans would continue tolerating the extremism of New Entrants. They assumed Trump’s personal appeal would transfer to down-ballot candidates.

Yet every one of those assumptions is now being tested, and every test is going badly. The Tennessee result wasn’t an outlier. Rather, it was confirmation of a pattern visible in every special election, every gubernatorial race, and every poll taken since Trump’s inauguration.

For Democrats, the opportunity is clear. Run veterans in the newly competitive districts Republicans created. Let them make the case to voters who might never consider a traditional Democrat. Focus on affordability, on service, on putting country over party.

Ultimately, the maps Republicans drew in 2025 may end up being the maps that cost them the House in 2026. Sometimes the best revenge is letting your opponent outsmart themselves.