In a Tennessee district that President Trump carried by 22 percentage points last year, a special House race that everyone’s keeping an eye on has turned into a tight contest, according to a new poll released Wednesday.
A survey conducted by Emerson College Poll and The Hill suggests that Republican candidate Matt Van Epps is ahead of Democrat Aftyn Behn by only two points—48 % to 46% among registered voters in the state’s 7th Congressional District. Five percent of respondents are still undecided, and two percent lean toward one of three third‑party candidates on the ballot.
Even when unknown voters were asked who they were leaning toward, Van Epps maintained a two‑point margin (49 % to 47%).
A win for Behn would trim the Republican majority in the House to just three seats and stir shock within the GOP after recent defeats in New Jersey and Virginia. Behn, 36, was first elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in a 2023 special election, but she has also attracted headlines for her outspoken statements made before holding public office.
In a 2020 podcast that resurfaced last week, Behn shared her displeasure with Nashville: “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.”
The 7th District covers portions of the state capital and the state’s most populous city.
Earlier, Behn wrote a 2019 op‑ed calling Tennessee a “racist state” in The Tennessean. In the summer of 2020, she urged on X that Nashville’s police department be dissolved and praised “the 54 % of Americans that believe burning down a police station is justified.”
The new seat will replace former House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, who resigned earlier this year to take a position in the private sector. The contest’s outcome will be decisive for both sides in the coming months.
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