The 7th is now reliably Republican; Trump carried it by 22 percentage points in 2024 and Green won his last two races by a similar margin. ...
In short, TN-7 is not exactly the place where the two political parties tend to fight it out, let alone spend meaningful sums of money. Yet that’s exactly what is happening in this special election.
Millions of dollars have poured into middle Tennessee in an attempt to tip the balance between Democrat Aftyn Behn, a progressive organizer and state representative, and Republican Matt Van Epps, the former Tennessee General Services commissioner.
... while it’s notable how much more bullish Democrats have gotten about their prospects, most party officials I spoke with (both in Tennessee and at national party organizations) think that Van Epps will ultimately win. It’s simple math. While Democrats tend to overperform in special elections and a Trump backlash is clearly brewing, a 22-point deficit is just a lot to overcome.
In private, Democratic officials tell me that they are hoping to see a single-digit loss. They believe even that would be enough to send a message that the political winds are at their backs, that Trump’s agenda is politically toxic, and that Democrats can seriously compete in red parts of the country that just a few weeks ago felt out of reach.
... Behn is running a campaign designed to turn out Democrats more than to make crosscurrent appeals to Republicans. That may work in a special election. But officials here think that such an approach would doom her in a regular election cycle, when Republican voters are more clued in and willing to show up. If Democrats want to be anything other than the party of highly educated people who show up in special elections, then they have to figure out how to win over more moderate and conservative voters.
...it is imperative for Democrats to find a formula that works. Behn may benefit from running in a special election—in which her party has routinely overperformed—but her success (or failure) is going to be closely studied for which voters are activated and why.
...Democrats in the state insist that a base-turnout strategy could work. In my conversation with Martin, he stated plainly that the race was “not about persuading voters, it’s about turning them out.” And at a canvass launch I attended last week, organizers for the Behn campaign told volunteers that they would be knocking only on the doors of Democratic voters and likely wouldn’t encounter any Republicans.
... Republicans have attempted to paint Behn as too liberal, resurfacing old podcast comments she made about policing and going after the work she did for the progressive grassroots group Indivisible. They’ve dubbed her the “AOC of Tennessee” and circulated clips of her calling Trump a “racist, white-supremacist bigot.”
There are some signals that Behn recognizes the risks and rewards of a base-turnout approach—and is trying to balance them. She has campaigned with progressive stars like Rep. Jasmine Crockett and activist David Hogg. But her buzziest campaign video does not even mention her party affiliation. When Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance in Nashville to encourage people to vote in the special election, it was hosted by the Tennessee Democratic Party, not Behn’s campaign. Harris, who had long planned to be in town for her book tour, never mentioned Behn by name and the two did not appear together. Behn left the rally to attend a fundraiser just a few minutes before the vice president arrived.
... The Behn model might be the smartest play for a special election, but the Democrats I spoke with warned that it was not how the party would unseat other Republicans in deeply red districts, like GOP Rep. Andy Ogles in Tennessee’s 5th—a race that the national Democratic party has already said they will spend money on next year.
“If Aftyn comes within 10 points, I absolutely think most Democrats in Tennessee will see this as ammunition to run further to the left in all races,” said a local elected official.
... Van Epps won a crowded Republican primary thanks to an endorsement from Trump, he’s done very little to highlight his MAGA credentials in the general election. In a recent TV ad, Van Epps doesn’t even mention he’s a Republican. (Read it all)
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