In the end, the race became a referendum on who felt like “us.” Matt Van Epps never dazzled, but he didn’t have to. His service record, his steadiness, and Trump’s nod stitched together a coalition of Republicans who’d drifted, doubted, or simply tuned out. The endorsement worked less as a command than as permission: you can trust this one, he’s from your world.
Aftyn Behn never escaped the frame others built around her. The more national attention she drew, the more she seemed like a visiting character in a race people thought they already understood. Voters weren’t angered by her positions so much as alienated by the performance surrounding them. When they marked their ballots, they weren’t punishing ambition or ideology. They were quietly insisting that their lives, not someone else’s narrative, would decide what mattered.
