Category: Matt Van Epps
A 9-point win becomes a ‘humiliating near-loss’? Please.
Republican Matt Van Epps has won a special election in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District — a race the media immediately framed as “shockingly close,” a supposed omen of GOP collapse heading into next year’s midterms.
That is how the Independent described it. Nearly every major outlet followed the same script: Van Epps “squeaked through,” “barely won,” or “scraped by” against flaky Democrat Aftyn Behn — a candidate so culturally radical she publicly insists that men can give birth and openly sneered at the people and culture of the district she sought to represent.
The Tennessee race did not expose a Republican crisis so much as it exposed the cultural realignment reshaping the country.
The narrative writes itself: If a progressive activist who hates her own potential constituents nearly flipped a House seat in deep-red Tennessee, then “fascist” Donald Trump and the Republican Party must be in free fall.
The problem? None of that holds up.
Van Epps did not “squeeze through” anything. He won by nine points against an opponent backed by a tidal wave of out-of-state woke-capitalist money. Democrats outspent Republicans roughly 2-1. Even so, Van Epps secured a solid victory, not the “humiliating near-defeat” hallucinated by the Daily Beast and dutifully echoed across left-wing media.
Context also matters, and the press prefers to ignore it. In 2022, Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District was redrawn to pull in more of deep-blue Nashville. Van Epps’ predecessor, Rep. Mark Green, warned that packing more of the city’s electorate into the district would narrow future margins. That change did not stop Trump or Green from running up impressive totals in their home territory, but it guarantees a steeper climb for any Republican candidate.
Viewed in that light, a nine-point GOP win looks less like a crisis and more like a stable hold in a reshaped district.
Another reality the press downplays: Republicans carried their traditional coalition — small-town and rural voters, self-identified Christians, the suburban families who still vote their interests. GOP turnout operations clearly did their job in a midterm environment that does not exactly thrill Republican voters.
Urban support for Republicans, however, continues to erode, and that pattern now shows up nationwide. The notion that “wokeness is over” or that the left has moderated itself belongs to fantasy. More than 80% of Nashville voters lined up behind Behn, a candidate who often sounded like a woke caricature conjured by a far-right blogger. New York City voters backed Zohran Mamdani in overwhelming fashion. Seattle just elevated a Mamdani clone to the mayor’s office. Claims that woke politics melted away do not survive contact with the vote totals.
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Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images
The role of upscale left-wing donors — woke capitalists — also deserves attention. These people do not operate as Marxists or socialists in any serious sense. They behave like cultural revolutionaries with money and influence, eager to use redistribution as a tool to reshape society. They have no problem talking about higher taxes on “the rich,” because the true cost lands on the working and middle classes through lower wages and higher prices. They bankroll candidates like Behn because they want a different country — one less anchored in the values of the people who actually live in places like Tennessee’s 7th.
The special election in Tennessee reflects the same class conflict now defining national politics. Cultural polarization keeps intensifying, and Tuesday’s special election showcased that reality in miniature.
“Affordability” only partially explains the anti-Trump, pro-left tilt in certain electorates. A far worse economy, with rampant inflation and rising medical and food costs, did not prevent the Biden administration from outperforming expectations in the midterms. Something deeper drives that trend.
The Tennessee race did not expose a Republican crisis so much as it exposed the cultural realignment reshaping the country. That shift will not simply fade away, no matter how often the media insists otherwise.
Democratic Strategist Makes Admission About Aftyn Behn One Day After Election
‘maybe take a run at the seat’
MAGA Republican defeats Nashville-hating Democrat in special election
The Republican candidate has prevailed in the special election for the 7th Congressional District of Tennessee.
With 81% of the vote in, Matt Van Epps, a Trump-endorsed Republican, holds a lead of more than 11,000 votes over radical Democrat state Rep. Aftyn Behn. CNN and NBC News among other outlets have called the race for Van Epps.
‘I hate all of the things that make Nashville.’
Though as of this writing he hasn’t yet claimed victory on social media, Van Epps did tweet, “THANK YOU, TENNESSEE,” shortly after media began calling the race.
Behn has not commented on social media.
However, she has lately had to answer for some previous comments and behaviors that indicate an erratic temperament and a deep-seated animus for Nashville, the city she was running to represent in Congress.
“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,” she said.
In 2019, Behn also stormed into the office of Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, and security had to come in and forcibly remove her, video revealed. She then began kicking, screaming, and sobbing on the floor.
By contrast, President Trump described Van Epps as a “phenomenal Candidate” and a “MAGA Warrior” in a Truth Social post on Tuesday morning.
Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images
The special election was held on Tuesday to replace former Republican Rep. Mark Green, who abruptly retired in June after helping pass Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Green said he planned to pursue a private-sector opportunity that was “too exciting to pass up.”
By holding the seat, Republicans will keep a 220-213 majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, though Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) has already announced that she plans to resign in January. Democrat Rep. Mikie Sherrill also stepped down from her seat after winning the New Jersey gubernatorial election last month.
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Republicans Hold On To House Seat In Tennessee
race was triggered after former Republican Tennessee Rep. Mark Green resigned
