{"id":59350,"date":"2025-12-03T05:28:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T05:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/59350\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T05:28:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T05:28:10","slug":"republican-matt-van-epps-defeats-aoc-of-tennessee-in-close-congressional-special-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/59350\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican Matt Van Epps defeats ‘AOC of Tennessee’ in close congressional special election"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republican Matt Van Epps <\/a>narrowly defeated Democrat Aftyn Behn in Tuesday\u2019s hotly contested special election for Tennessee\u2019s 7th District House seat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Behn had raised Democrats\u2019 hopes for an upset in the conservative stronghold<\/a> after late polling showed the state lawmaker within striking distance of Van Epps, a former Army helicopter pilot backed by President Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Van Epps led by about 6 percentage points with 85% of ballots counted Tuesday night, when the Associated Press called the race for the Republican at 9:37 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Republican Matt Van Epps won the special election in Tennessee. AP<\/p>\n

Democrat challenger Aftyn Behn won the close race. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cCongratulations to Matt Van Epps on his BIG Congressional WIN in the Great State of Tennessee,\u201d Trump posted on Truth Social. \u201cThe Radical Left Democrats threw everything at him, including Millions of Dollars. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnother great night for the Republican Party!!! President DJT\u201d<\/p>\n

The race for the vacant House seat previously held by former Rep. Mark Green<\/a>, who retired earlier this year, became even more critical for Republicans to hold onto in the wake of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene\u2019s (R-Ga.) decision to leave Congress come January.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tennessee Democratic Congressional nominee Aftyn Behn speaks in Dickson, Tenn. on Sept. 8, 2025. AP<\/p>\n

On Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), stumped for Van Epps on the ground in the middle Tennessee district and Trump held two tele-rallies urging voters to head out to the polls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a big deal, because right now we\u2019re like, three votes up on the radical left, and this would be a wonderful victory for us,\u201d Trump said on one of the get-out-the-vote calls. \u201cIt\u2019ll be really a positive sign.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The president, who beat former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 7th District by a 22 point margin, argued that the special election results must show \u201cthat the Republican Party is stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican Matt Van Epps won the deeply red Tennessee district. AP<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Johnson acknowledged \u201cevery seat matters more than ever\u201d in the lower chamber.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is no secret my majority in Congress is razor-thin,\u201d the House speaker told voters during one of the tele-rallies with Trump.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

With Greene\u2019s upcoming retirement and special elections to fill the two vacant House seats previously held by Democrats, Johnson faced the possibility of passing legislation with a zero-vote margin by next spring, had Van Epps lost.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A surprising Emerson College Polling<\/a> survey recently showed Van Epps topping Behn by only 2 percentage points (48%-46%).<\/p>\n

Trump threw his support behind Matt Van Epps. YURI GRIPAS\/POOL\/EPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

\u201cRepublicans are struggling to hold a House seat in Tennessee that Trump just won by 22 points,\u201d House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) argued on Monday. \u201cAmerica is clearly disgusted with these GOP extremists. And are prepared to throw them all out of office.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Behn was branded by Trump as the \u201cAOC of Tennessee\u201d \u2013 a reference to \u201csquad\u201d Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who campaigned for the Democratic congressional candidate \u2013 and was hit hard by the president over her past remarks about country music and Christianity.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Democrats are spending a fortune, and we don\u2019t want people that want to raise your taxes,\u201d Trump said Monday. \u201cBut [Behn] said two things above all else that bothered me. Number one, she hates Christianity. Number two, she hates country music.<\/p>\n

House Speaker Mike Johnson stumped for Matt Van Epps. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHow the hell can you elect a person like that?\u201d<\/p>\n

On the eve of the special election, Van Epps vowed that with Trump\u2019s support he would \u201cwin this race and keep this seat red.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the campaign trail, the West Point graduate touted his nine military combat tours and pledged to work with Trump to bring down the cost of living, lower health care costs create more good paying jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will deport every single criminal illegal, keep men out of women\u2019s sports \u2026 stand with our veterans and we\u2019ll make sure every hard working Tennessean can thrive,\u201d Van Epps promised voters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republican Matt Van Epps narrowly defeated Democrat Aftyn Behn in Tuesday\u2019s hotly contested special election for Tennessee\u2019s 7th…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5340,858,153,416,7381,9,11,10,87,287,7316,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-59350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-campaigns","9":"tag-congress","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-elections","12":"tag-mike-johnson","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-news","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-tennessee","18":"tag-us-house-of-representatives","19":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}