Matt Van Epps’ win in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District wasn’t just another special election result. It was a strategically critical victory at a moment when the House majority hangs by a thread and every seat shapes the nation’s direction on spending, borders, and basic freedoms. On Tuesday night, Van Epps defeated Democrat Aftyn Behn, securing the seat left vacant when former Rep. Mark Green stepped down for a private-sector role.
The race was officially called by Dave Wasserman, Senior Editor and Election Analyst for the Cook Political Report. And while special elections don’t always capture national attention, this one mattered. It tightened the margins in a House where retirements, vacancies, and the increasingly aggressive maneuvering of Democrat-led states—particularly California—have made every Republican-held seat essential to maintaining a check on federal overreach.
Van Epps highlighted this reality plainly during his interview on Breitbart News Daily, explaining, “This is a critical election for the balance of power in the House for Republicans to hold the majority. You know there — when you, when you look out over the next several months and you see the folks that are either resigning, and you know those seats potentially in play, you look at what California is doing, this very well could come down to a single vote.” His win shores up that margin at a moment when one vote may determine whether Congress reins in Washington’s bureaucracy—or hands it more room to grow.
Democrat Aftyn Behn, meanwhile, struggled throughout the race to distance herself from past comments that raised eyebrows even among moderates. In her 2020 appearance on the Grits podcast, she stated, “I think as an organizer and as an activist, we really have an opportunity here in this country to talk about what type of progressive policies we want to see as young women, and I think we have as birthers, as women who can give birth — men and women who can give birth — we can maybe leverage that as collective bargaining, which is the basis of this book that I’ve just started reading called ‘Birth Strike,’ and how we can really leverage collective bargaining when it comes to having children in this country.”
The clip resurfaced during the campaign, highlighting Behn’s alignment with the left’s increasingly fluid definitions of gender—an issue that has repeatedly alienated voters who favor biological reality and common sense over activist-driven language games.
Her stance came into sharper focus after the tragic March 2023 shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville. Rather than centering the Christian community that endured the attack, Behn and her family directed public sympathies toward the transgender community. During a July 2023 candidate forum, she said her partner “has a trans son.” She added that after the shooting and the release of information indicating the shooter identified as transgender, she was “pulled into a chat with other trans organizers and activists across the state that were fearful of their lives.”
It was a moment that reinforced for many Tennesseans how deeply the Democratic Party’s priorities have drifted from the concerns of parents, faith communities, and law-abiding citizens.
President Donald Trump urged voters to rally behind Van Epps in the final stretch, posting on Truth Social for “all America First Patriots in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District to please GET OUT AND VOTE.” The strong turnout that followed helped secure a victory that now bolsters the House majority heading into a volatile political season.
Van Epps’ win doesn’t just fill a vacant seat. It reinforces a coalition determined to restore common-sense governance, strengthen national security, and push back against ideological experiments that place activism over stability, and rhetoric over results. In a year when every seat matters, this one carries weight.
