Republicans win Tennessee election despite Democratic fightback

Republicans won a hotly contested congressional election in Tennessee, according to US media, after a race that had been seen as a test of whether Democrats can stage a national comeback next year.

With almost all votes counted, Republican Matt Van Epps was on track to beat Democrat Aftyn Behn by about nine percentage points.

The victory helps Republicans maintain their narrow majority in the House of Representatives, but Van Epps’ margin of victory appears to be less than half of what Trump won the district with in the 2024 presidential election.

The vote in the state’s 7th Congressional District has received national attention as the United States prepares for midterm elections next year.

The special election has been touted by some as a referendum on Trump’s performance in his second term so far, and as a bellwether for the 2026 congressional elections, in which Democrats will attempt to take control of Congress.

Failing to hold on to the seat would have been seen as a blow to Republicans and an indication that Trump’s electoral appeal may be waning.

Ultimately, the party retained the seat, but by a much smaller margin than the decisive victory Trump won there last year.

The congressional seat up for grabs stretches from the Alabama border to Kentucky and includes parts of the city of Nashville. No Democrat has been elected there in over 40 years.

The seat was vacated after Republican Rep. Mark Green resigned in July to work in the private sector.

Both parties have spent millions of dollars trying to promote their candidate.

Top party officials have also traveled to the state to hold rallies, including former Democratic Vice Presidents Kamala Harris and Al Gore, as well as Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Van Epps had aligned himself closely with Trump, who held a virtual rally in support of his campaign.

After his victory, Van Epps said the result “showed that running from Trump is how you lose, running with Trump is how you win.”

“Politicians who shun the president or abandon the common-sense policies for which the American people have given us a resounding mandate do so at their own peril,” he added.

Trump praised Van Epps on social media Tuesday night, writing that “radical left Democrats threw everything at him, including millions of dollars.”

Behn lost in every county except Davidson County, which includes the city of Nashville.

But at a campaign event Tuesday night, Behn said that despite her defeat, she believed the result was “the start of something powerful,” adding that “no one in Washington believed we could get this close.”

Ian Russell, a Democratic operative consulting for the Behn campaign, told the BBC that Trump “had to spend millions of dollars to fill this seat.”

“The Republicans did everything they could to hold on to this seat. This is a very, very bad sign for them as the midterm elections approach,” he said.

Tennessee is still decidedly Trump territory. He won the state with 64% of the vote last year and won 60% of the vote in the previous two presidential elections.

Van Epps is a military veteran who served nine tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He ran in a crowded primary where loyalty to Trump was a litmus test — and a last-minute endorsement from the president propelled him to the top.

Behn, meanwhile, focused her campaign almost exclusively on issues of affordability and local quality of life.