Republicans are looking to hang on to a ruby-red congressional district Tuesday in a surprisingly competitive special election that has become a high-profile test of voters’ attitudes about President Donald Trump’s agenda and Democrats’ response less than a year before the midterm elections.
The contest in Tennessee’s 7th District, which Trump won by more than 20 percentage points in 2024, has put the GOP on edge, while raising Democratic hopes about a massive upset or overperformance weeks after a strong showing in off-year elections across several states. Strategists in both parties say they see a competitive race that tilts toward the Republican candidate as each side has flooded the district with money, ads and prominent surrogates not typically seen in such a partisan stronghold.
That national attention was evident on Monday, with Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) campaigning for Republican Matt Van Epps and Democrat Aftyn Behn hosting a virtual rally featuring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and former vice president Al Gore.
“It’s fair to say this Republican is a little nervous,” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tennessee). “It’s an off-year. It’s a special election. It’s around the holiday, and there’s just a lot of things that could play into the Democrats’ favor.”
Republicans have been scrambling in recent weeks to save the seat in an area they have long dominated, spending millions of dollars trying to boost Van Epps across the finish line. Party strategists see the competition as something of a testing ground for tactics ahead of the midterms, when control of the House will hang in the balance. While far from a perfect predictor of future electoral outcomes, Tuesday’s contest features platforms from both candidates that are expected to resurface in the midterms.
Behn, a 36-year-old left-leaning state representative, has run as a change candidate focusing on affordability, decrying high prices and inflation and GOP economic policies such as Trump’s tariffs. “If we get close,” she said in an interview with The Washington Post, it will be because of the “affordability crisis that we are experiencing in Tennessee and the fact that the federal administration has not delivered an economic agenda to address the needs of working people in the state.”
Van Epps, a 42-year-old lieutenant colonel in the Tennessee Army National Guard, has run as a Republican fully in line with Trump, who endorsed him in the primary and has touted him as “a true ‘America First’ patriot who has dedicated his entire life to serving our country.”
The GOP nominee, who declined an interview request, has portrayed Behn as too extreme for the district, pointing to her support for transgender rights and ties to top Democrats, among other things. He closed his campaign Monday with a pitch to Trump supporters, telling them, if elected, he would “help President Trump save the nation we love.” Trump joined him, suggesting the race carried very high stakes.
“Remember, the world is watching this one,” Trump said, as he acknowledged the result will be viewed as a judgment of his second term. “I need somebody like Matt Van Epps. He is going to be one of our best congressmen,” Trump added.
Democrats have finished on top in 2025’s marquee elections, sweeping November’s gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey by double digits after campaigning against Trump and his agenda, and notching historic wins in a raft of other states.
They have also found success in special elections and judicial races this year, continuing a longer-term pattern of performing well in lower-profile contests, while Republicans have excelled at motivating voters to come out when Trump is on the ballot. Democrats made gains in a September special election for the state Senate in Georgia, won an August Iowa state Senate district that Trump had carried comfortably and emerged victorious in an April state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin.
Tuesday’s vote is shaping up as a final exam of sorts for both parties at the end of a tumultuous political year. Trump’s approval rating is in negative territory, polls show, leaving Republicans nervous about 2026. Democrats have been heartened by their electoral victories, but many remain troubled by polls showing that the public holds them in low regard. While a Democratic win in this race would not shift control of the U.S. House, it would shrink Republicans’ narrow 219-213 advantage in the chamber, something Johnson warned as he campaigned with Van Epps on Monday.
Independent pre-election polling in the race was scarce, but surveys showed Van Epps with a single-digit lead over Behn, far closer than when Republican Rep. Mark Green — who resigned from Congress in July — won reelection by 21 percentage points in 2024. Many Democrats say they would be surprised if Behn wins, but both sides are keeping close tabs on the margin and voter turnout.
The Tennessee district, which stretches north to south across the state, was redistricted in 2022, when state Republicans eliminated a Democratic district centered on Nashville and dispersed its voters across three nearby Republican districts. Behn has worked to leverage that change to her advantage by bringing out the predominantly African American areas of Nashville that were added to the district.
Republicans across the political spectrum have tried to head off Democratic momentum with attacks casting Behn as too far left and branding her as “the AOC of Tennessee.” A super PAC aligned with Trump has aired ads in the contest, its first spending since the president was elected. Right-leaning organizations such as the Club for Growth Action, Conservatives for American Excellence PAC and the Republican National Committee have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the contest.
“I am confident that Matt is going to win. But in every election, you run as if you’re behind in order to make sure you win,” said former congressman David McIntosh, the president of the Club for Growth. McIntosh said that in private polling, few voters knew an election was coming, posing a challenge for the GOP.
The Democratic National Committee recruited volunteers and helped Behn organize while House Majority PAC, a super PAC closely aligned with Democratic congressional leadership in the House, spent $1 million on TV and digital ads in the race. Your Community PAC, a Democratic group, aired ads in the district that hit Van Epps for initially opposing the release of the government’s files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Van Epps, like Trump and other Republicans, has since flipped his stance and supports releasing the files. But Behn has aired an ad that accused Van Epps of “burying the Epstein files.” Van Epps, on the day the House overwhelmingly voted to compel the release, wrote on social media that he is “with President Trump 100%” and “would vote to release the Epstein files, no hesitation.”
Behn has also run ads that criticize Trump’s economic policies without explicitly naming him, an apparent effort to strike a balance in an area where the president has many loyal backers. “We are trying to mobilize our people without mobilizing theirs,” she said in the interview.
Aware of the potency of economic-based attacks, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) has called Van Epps “a proven warrior” who, among other things, is “focused on the cost of living” and “the price of gas and groceries.” And Van Epps said on Monday that, if elected, he would work with Trump to “bring down the cost of living.”
Behn has not shied away from her liberal positions, touting her support for abortion rights and legalizing recreational marijuana, while Van Epps has attacked her for opposing the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
“The only way to stop crazy is to vote against crazy,” Van Epps said during his rally with Trump.
“I’m not a moderate White guy, but I am an organizer and I’m a Tennessean,” Behn said in the interview with The Post, citing a chance to “rewrite the Democratic playbook in the South.”
Her policy positions have given Republicans some reasons for optimism, even in a tough political climate.
This district is not “in any danger of being flipped,” said Jody Barrett, a Tennessee state representative who lost to Van Epps in the primary. Barrett, who referred to Van Epps as a “buttoned-up” politician who “sticks to the script,” said that while Behn’s views may rally her base in some parts of the district, they will also invigorate Republicans.
Former vice president Kamala Harris (D) rallied Behn supporters last month, but she did not appear onstage with the Democratic candidate and never explicitly mentioned her name. “This is a moment in the history of our country, right now, where the leadership from the ground, from the neighborhood, from the community, matters more than ever,” said Harris, who lost Tennessee by 30 percentage points in 2024.
The fact that Republicans have had to attack Behn much at all is what has been most notable to many observers.
“It’s interesting that Van Epps isn’t in a strong enough position just to ignore her,” said John G. Geer, a Vanderbilt University political scientist. “That tells me they’re worried.”
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