Off-year elections can sometimes fly under the radar. But not this one.
And conservatives are in panic mode over these election results.
The GOP is on high alert as a special election in Tennessee’s 7th District heats up, threatening to erode their grip on the House. This seat, where President Trump cruised to victory by 22 points just last year, now looks vulnerable to a radical Democrat challenger. With the vote set for December 2, GOP insiders are sounding the alarm over low turnout risks and a shocking poll that spells trouble.
The race pits Republican Matt Van Epps against Democrat Aftyn Behn, who’s being called the “AOC of Tennessee.” What was supposed to be a Republican lock is turning into a nail-biter, and a loss here could push the House majority to the brink. Republicans fear that if Democrats snag this win and fill their own vacancies, the balance could tip to 218-216, leaving no room for error on key votes.
“I’m very concerned about it. Of course, it’s an off-year election. It’s right after Thanksgiving. A lot of the Republicans are out of town. And I worry about them showing up on Election Day,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) said to the New York Post. “It’s a razor-thin margin.”
The drama ramps up with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) surprise retirement, opening another front for Democrats to exploit.
A Democrat triumph in Tennessee, combined with other election wins, would force Republicans into perfect unity on every bill—no defections allowed. The country has seen holdouts like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) buck the party line before, and early retirements could wipe out the majority even sooner.
A bombshell poll from Emerson College and The Hill dropped Wednesday, showing Van Epps edging Behn by just 48% to 46%—a statistical tie. This has conservatives scrambling, as it exposes cracks in what should be solid red territory.
“I think the polls are a little bit misleading, because it seems that older Tennesseans are voting and they generally vote more conservative than the younger folks do,” Burchett said.
Even so, Burchett, who’s hit the trail with Van Epps twice, urges fellow Republicans to stay vigilant. “If it’s close, that should be a big enough wake-up call,” he said. “If [Behn] wins, I think it could be devastating for us.”
This Tennessee showdown comes after Democrats dominated off-year races, where polls hyped Republican chances but delivered disappointments—like in New Jersey’s governor contest. Now, with Kamala Harris parachuting in to boost Behn, it’s clear the left smells blood in the water.
“Matt Van Epps will be a member of Congress,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Reilly Richardson said to the New York Post.
But some Democrat insiders whisper that Behn’s odds are slim, accusing Republicans of hyping the threat to fire up their base. They’re pointing fingers at GOP spending as proof of desperation.
“The Republicans are dumping over $1.5 million into this Trump +22 district in a desperate last-minute attempt to avoid a Democratic overperformance that will tell us what we already know — Republicans are going to lose the House majority next year,” a Democrat strategist explained, according to the New York Post.
The strategist claimed such a result would expose the GOP agenda as toxic, even in Trump strongholds. They hark back to April’s Florida special, where Rep. Randy Fine (R) won by 14 points despite pre-election jitters.
Trump himself appears wary of these special election pitfalls, pulling back his endorsement for Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) as UN ambassador. The Tennessee vacancy opened when Rep. Mark Green, former Homeland Security Committee chair, quit in July after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed. Green had romped to reelection by over 21 points last year.
Van Epps, a ex-Tennessee Department of General Services commissioner, is hammering Behn’s radical past to rally voters. Five years ago, Behn trashed Nashville on a podcast: “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 apparently an ‘it’ city to the rest of the country. But I hate it.”
She branded Tennessee a “racist state” in a 2019 Tennessean op-ed and backed defunding the police in 2020. “Good morning, especially to the 54% of Americans that believe burning down a police station is justified,” she said in a post on X in 2020.
When grilled by MS NOW on those posts, Behn played dumb: “I don’t remember these tweets.”
“She’s an extremist,” Burchett stated. “And now she won’t even address the quote she’s made about the police and our military and our border and everything.”
