Special elections are notorious for yielding unexpected results because they tend to draw only the most politically engaged voters, a pattern that generally favors Democrats. All eyes are on Tuesday’s fight for the House seat vacated by Republican Rep. Mark Green in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, who retired in July. The 7th District, which is “located in central and western Tennessee, stretches from Kentucky to Alabama, and includes parts of Nashville.”
The stakes are high as Republicans seek to preserve their already narrow 219–213 majority in the House. Even by special election standards, the polls should not be this tight in such a reliably red state, which explains why both parties have poured significant resources into this contest.
Fears of an upset in this race increased after an Emerson poll released on Wednesday showed liberal Tennessee state Rep. Aftyn Beyn, the Democratic candidate, within 2 points of her Republican opponent, Mark Van Epps. President Donald Trump carried the district by 22 points last November.
The Daily Wire reported:
Van Epps, 39, easily won the crowded GOP primary in October after an endorsement from President Trump. Van Epps is an Army helicopter pilot and combat veteran with years of experience in the Tennessee state government. He served as the deputy chief operating officer for the Tennessee Governor’s Office. He was then tapped by Republican Governor Bill Lee to run the Tennessee Department of General Services, where he “oversaw statewide procurement, facilities management, and essential services that touch every department in Tennessee government.”During the Republican primary, Van Epps was criticized by his opponents for working to implement strict COVID lockdown measures in the early days of the pandemic and was nicknamed “Tennessee Fauci.” That line of attack on Van Epps was ineffective, and he won the GOP primary by more than 25 points.
Van Epps is a West Point graduate with an impressive resume. He describes himself as a “conservative warrior” who is focused on “advancing President Trump’s America First agenda.” Perhaps his greatest weakness is his lack of charisma.
The far-Left Behn, dubbed “the AOC of Tennessee” by David Hogg, while more charismatic than her rival, has been hampered by her past support for defunding the police and by a recently surfaced clip from a 2020 podcast in which she criticizes Nashville. Brutally.
Behn said, “I hate the city, I hate the bachelorettes, I hate the pedal taverns, I hate country music, I hate all of the things that make Nashville. I hate it.”
The Washington Free Beacon reported that in 2019, Behn called Tennessee voters “racist.” She wrote, “Let me be clear: Tennessee is a racist state. Racism is in the air we breathe.”
When MSNOW’s Catherine Rampell pressed Beyn earlier this week about her past tweets in support of defunding the police, she worked hard to dodge the question: “Um, I… I’m not going to engage in… in… in… uh, cable news talking points. …”
Rampell asked, “So you don’t want to clarify whether you still believe that the police should be defunded?”
Behn replied, “Once again, I’m… I don’t remember these tweets, but I’m… what I’m saying is that um.
Rampell said she was not asking if Beyn remembered the tweets. She wanted to know her current position on the issue.
Once again, Behn refused to answer, saying, “I mean, I’m… I’m once again… I’m here to talk about my race, which is in uh literally nine days.”
Last week, former Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Nashville to campaign with Behn. The event marked Harris’s first appearance on the campaign trail since last November, according to Fox News.
The Daily Wire emphasized that Behn has not shied away from her liberal views:
Earlier this year, she followed and filmed ICE agents and Tennessee Highway Patrol officers as they made immigration arrests around Nashville. She has called Trump’s immigration operations “state-sponsored fear and violence.” Behn also voiced support for burning down police stations during the 2020 George Floyd riots. She recently refused to address the controversial social media post where she stated, “Good morning, especially to the 54% of Americans that believe burning down a police station is justified.”After three Christian schoolchildren and three staff members were killed by a trans-identifying shooter in Nashville in 2023, Behn said she was “fearful” for “trans communities.”
While Van Epps should do well in the rural areas outside of Nashville, Behn is expected to be strong in the city itself. According to analysis from the Daily Wire, she will need to outperform expectations and “will need a high Democratic turnout for a chance to pull off an upset.”
On the other hand:
If Republicans show up in the counties surrounding Nashville and the more rural areas of the state as they have in recent House elections, Van Epps will likely cruise to victory. Tennessee’s 7th district includes areas such as part of wealthy Williamson County, which Trump won by more than 30 points in 2024, and rural Robertson County, which Trump won by 40 points.
In recent years, many Californians have moved to Tennessee — especially to Nashville — shifting the electorate slightly to the left. In a normal election year, it likely wouldn’t matter.
Political analysis website The Cook Political Report noted that two weeks ago, they shifted their rating of this race from “solid” to “likely” Republican, because of the “slim possibility” that Behn “could pull off an upset due to anemic Republican turnout.”
Republicans must turn out in force on Tuesday. If they are complacent, as voters often are in special elections, we might see the upset that Democrats, who are far more motivated, are hoping for.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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