Republicans are admittedly "nervous" about Tuesday's special election in Tennessee's seventh congressional district, and that's reason enough to put them on edge about next year's midterms.
President Donald Trump won that district by more than 20 percentage points just over a year ago, but polling shows Republican Matt Van Epps with a single-digit lead over Democrat Aftyn Behn, who has centered her campaign around affordability as Republicans bash her as too far left and called her "the AOC of Tennessee," reported the Washington Post.
“It’s interesting that Van Epps isn’t in a strong enough position just to ignore her,” said Vanderbilt University political scientist John G. Geer. “That tells me they’re worried.”
The district stretches from the Alabama border in the south to the Kentucky border in the north and was redistricted in 2022, when state Republicans dispersed voters from a Democratic district centered on Nashville into three nearby GOP districts, and Behn has worked to activate Black voters in parts of the city added to the seventh district.
“I’m not a moderate white guy, but I am an organizer and I’m a Tennessean,” Behn told the Post, saying she hoped to “rewrite the Democratic playbook in the South.”
Trump and his allies have poured considerable resources into the campaign to replace Republican Rep. Mark Green — who also won by more than 20 points last year but resigned from Congress in July – and while most would be surprised if Behn won, the fact that the race is close indicates the GOP's narrow 219-213 House majority is fragile.
“Remember, the world is watching this one,” Trump said, acknowledging the result is an early referendum on his second term. “I need somebody like Matt Van Epps. He is going to be one of our best congressmen."
Republicans have been scrambling in recent weeks, the Post reported, to salvage down a race they believed had been locked down with Trump's endorsement of Van Epps, but the president's approval rating has dipped deeply into negative territory over the course of this year.
“It’s fair to say this Republican is a little nervous,” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN). “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.”