Republicans just won an election in Tennessee but it's still bad news for Trump

When Mark Green announced his retirement from politics, it seemed to his Republican colleagues that refilling the seat would be an easy feat.

Tennessee, and its newly vacant 7th congressional district, were firmly red strongholds.

In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump won the district by 22 points.

The last time Green went to an election, almost 60 per cent of voters cast their ballots for him.

Indeed, a Democrat had not been elected to represent the 7th district in more than 40 years.

So when Matt Van Epps, a former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services, was chosen as the Republican candidate for the ensuing by-election, he seemed a shoo-in.

The race did not quite pan out that way.

Van Epps did win when Tennessee went to the polls on Tuesday, but with a margin of just nine points, it did not come easy.

A high-stakes election

The special election, as it is called in the US, was the first for federal office since Democrats stormed to numerous victories on November 4.

Self-described democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani had a blistering rise to New York mayor.

In Virginia and New Jersey's governorship races, the Democratic Party increased its winning margins from the presidential election a year prior.

With the 2026 midterm elections fast approaching, pundits were tipping the Republican Party's narrow majority in the House of Representatives was at risk.

All the while, Trump's net approval rating had been sliding downward.

Republicans saw Tennessee as an opportunity to change the storyline.

Enter: Aftyn Behn

If the November elections had left Republicans uneasy, Democrats walked away hungry for more.

The party was eyeing even rusted-on red areas.

Their woman in the Tennessee race was Aftyn Behn: a 36-year-old member of the Tennessee House of Representatives who described herself as a "pissed-off social worker".

Trump called her the "AOC of Tennessee".

He meant it as a sledge drawing parallels between Behn and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's democratic socialist brand of leftism.

Behn, who supported democratic socialist Bernie Sanders in the 2020 presidential primary, focused on expanding Medicaid and lowering the cost of living through initiatives like eliminating a state tax on groceries.

But the similarities between her and AOC cut deeper.

Ocasio-Cortez is one of the left's most influential leaders, capable of mobilising young voters with a progressive platform — something Behn proved adept at, too.

"If you are upset about the cost of living and the chaos of Washington, we are your campaign."

Democratic political strategist Ian Russell said while a "more moderate candidate" might have performed better in a general election, Behn was the woman "for the moment".

"What Aftyn is able to put together is a coalition of the pissed off — people who are not happy with what they're getting out of Washington, frustrated with the direction that the country is going, frustrated primarily with what they're seeing every time they go to the grocery store or look at their health insurance premiums," he told political journalist Abby Livingston.

Polling showed the cost of living would be a defining issue at the election and in that area, Behn was performing well.

The Republican Party was worried.

'The whole world is watching'

Mid-term elections always draw a smaller crowd of voters, and the unique timing of this race (just after Thanksgiving) threatened both candidates' chances if they didn't rally their supporters effectively.

"I'm very concerned that we could be caught with our pants down," Republican representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee said during the campaign.

As election day — and polling margins — drew closer, both major parties fell into a tit-for-tat competition.

Republican super political action committees (PACs), which help fund political campaigns, tipped $US3.1 million ($4.68 million) into Van Epps's campaign.

Democratic-aligned PACs gave $US2.3 million to Behn's.

Former vice-president Kamala Harris appeared at one of Behn's get-out-the-vote rallies.

Trump called in to several of Van Epps's.

"The whole world is watching Tennessee right now, and they're watching the district," the president said on one call.

Behn was acutely aware of the exceptional attention paid to Tennessee's 7th congressional district, too.

"I never thought I'd see national attention devoted to a race like this," she told the American Broadcasting Corporation.

One week out from election day, polling suggested Van Epps might have been in trouble.

The survey of 600 people by Emerson College Polling and The Hill found 48 per cent voter support for Van Epps. Behn was only two points behind.

With a 3.9 per cent margin of error, it appeared the election was truly a dead heat.

But those voting early broke for Behn 56 per cent to 42 per cent.

Republicans tend to prefer voting on election day itself, and Van Epps would need to rely on this turnout to clinch the win.

Celebrating a loss

Wearing a cornflower blue western-style rhinestone shirt and pants, Behn took the stage at an event space in the heart of Nashville the night of election day. 

Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 rang out from speakers beneath cheers from a raucous crowd.

The Democrat beamed and waved to her supporters.

"Oh, my goodness, thank you, thank you, thank you," she said.

One could have easily mistaken this for a victory party.

In the end, Republicans managed to hold onto the reliably conservative seat — a feat attributed to the late and aggressive burst of national spending to the tune of $US4 million and high-profile campaigning.

But the winning margin was less than half of Green's 21-point lead in 2024.

It was this point that Democrats celebrated.

"That Nashville turned out is a testament to not only my candidacy and the campaign we've built, but also Black voters and Nashville," she gushed as supporters danced to upbeat tunes behind her.

Van Epps took the night to celebrate his win.

"We are grateful to the president for his unwavering support that charted this movement and catapulted us to victory," Van Epps said in his victory speech.

"President Trump was all-in with us. That made the difference. In Congress, I'll be all-in with him."

But that same night, some of his Republican colleagues had already begun a post-mortem.

"We could have lost this district," Senator Ted Cruz told Fox News after the race was called.

The outcome cast a gloomy outlook for Republicans going into the 2026 mid-terms.

Pundits say the party will need to defend more vulnerable seats than usual if they are to have any hope of keeping the House majority.

"The danger signs are there, and we shouldn't have had to spend that kind of money to hold that kind of seat," said Jason Roe, a national Republican strategist working on several of next year's battleground races.

Cruz said his party had to "set out the alarm bells" because next year was "going to be a turnout election and the left will show up".

ABC/AP