A special election for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District will be held on December 2 to fill the seat vacated by Republican Rep. Mark Green in July. Republican Matt Van Epps faces Democrat Aftyn Behn in a race that, while taking place in a solidly Republican district, has drawn heavy spending and attention from both parties.
The vacancy in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District arose after Republican Rep. Mark Green, who has represented the district since 2019, retired from the U.S. House on July 20, 2025, shortly after voting to help pass President Donald Trump’s "Big, Beautiful Bill." Green’s departure triggered the special election now scheduled for Tuesday, December 2, 2025.
The 7th District sits in the western part of what is considered Middle Tennessee, stretching from the Kentucky border through north and west Nashville down to the Alabama state line. According to election results from 2024, voters in the district backed Trump by roughly 22 percentage points, and the seat has remained safely in Republican hands, including under Green’s tenure.
Republican nominee Matt Van Epps, 39, an Army helicopter pilot and combat veteran, won a crowded GOP primary in October after securing an endorsement from Trump. As reported by the Daily Wire and his campaign biography, Van Epps previously served as deputy chief operating officer in the Tennessee Governor’s Office before being appointed by Republican Gov. Bill Lee to lead the Tennessee Department of General Services, where he oversaw statewide procurement, facilities management and other core services for state agencies.
During the Republican primary, opponents attacked Van Epps over his role in implementing strict COVID-19 lockdown measures in the early stages of the pandemic, and he was derisively nicknamed “Tennessee Fauci.” Those criticisms did not gain traction; he won the nomination by more than 25 points and received more than 19,000 votes in the October primary, according to turnout figures cited by the Daily Wire from state and national election data.
On the campaign trail, Van Epps describes himself as a "conservative warrior" focused on advancing Trump’s America First agenda. He has been endorsed by Trump, Gov. Lee, former Rep. Green and Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, according to his campaign.
Democrats selected state Rep. Aftyn Behn, 36, as their nominee. Behn has served in the Tennessee House of Representatives since 2023. She was dubbed the "AOC of Tennessee" by Democratic activist David Hogg, a comparison to New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as noted by Fox News and referenced by the Daily Wire. Behn narrowly won her primary, receiving just over 8,600 votes, according to vote totals reported by The New York Times and summarized by the Daily Wire.
Behn has embraced a progressive profile. Earlier in 2025, she followed and filmed immigration enforcement operations involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and Tennessee Highway Patrol officers around Nashville. On social media she has criticized Trump’s immigration policies as "state-sponsored fear and violence." She has also faced scrutiny for resurfaced social media posts during the 2020 George Floyd protests, including one in which she wrote, “Good morning, especially to the 54% of Americans that believe burning down a police station is justified.” Behn has recently declined to address that post directly when questioned, according to the Daily Wire’s account of the race.
Following the 2023 shooting at a Christian elementary school in Nashville that left three children and three staff members dead, Behn publicly said she was “fearful” for “trans communities,” remarks that drew criticism from conservatives. She has also been criticized by opponents for previous comments in which she said she hated Nashville, parts of which she now seeks to represent in Congress.
Geographically and politically, much of the 7th District is rural and strongly Republican, covering large portions of Middle Tennessee outside the urban core of Nashville. Analysts expect Van Epps to run up margins in these rural areas and in affluent, heavily Republican suburbs such as parts of Williamson County, where Trump won by more than 30 points in the 2024 presidential election, and in rural Robertson County, which Trump carried by about 40 points, according to 2024 county-level results cited by Politico and referenced in the Daily Wire analysis.
By contrast, Behn’s best opportunities lie in the more liberal neighborhoods of north and west Nashville, which are also within the district. To be competitive, Democrats say she will need exceptionally high turnout in those parts of Davidson County to offset the Republican advantage elsewhere.
Campaign finance filings and media reports show that both parties and outside groups have invested heavily in the race. According to NBC News reporting cited by the Daily Wire, Behn’s campaign raised more than $1 million between October 1 and November 12, while Van Epps brought in about $591,000 during the same period. Behn’s campaign has spent more than half a million dollars on advertising. In addition, Democrat-aligned House Majority PAC and Your Community PAC have together spent about $950,000 on ads in support of Behn or in opposition to Van Epps, according to figures reported by the Nashville Banner and relayed by the Daily Wire.
Republican-aligned organizations have also poured money into the contest. The Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. super PAC has spent more than $1 million on the race, and the conservative Club for Growth has also intervened to boost Van Epps with additional outside spending, the Daily Wire reports.
The scale of spending and the district’s usual partisan lean have drawn national attention. Earlier in November, the Cook Political Report shifted its rating of Tennessee’s 7th District from "solid Republican" to "lean Republican," noting that Democratic enthusiasm in Nashville contrasts with relatively low awareness of the special election among some Republican voters.
Tennessee Republican Party Chair Scott Golden told public radio outlet WPLN News that he expects the outcome to hinge on GOP turnout, especially with in-person early voting and Election Day falling around the Thanksgiving holiday period. “Anytime you have a special election that is bracketed by the Thanksgiving holiday, you can’t afford to take a day off,” he said. Golden added that one of his chief concerns is that “people aren’t aware that they have the opportunity to vote right now.”
Democratic strategists, including those at House Majority PAC, point to recent Democratic gains in off-year elections in states such as New Jersey and Virginia as evidence that "no Republican-held seat is safe," and they argue that Behn’s focus on affordability and the economy could resonate with independents and moderate Republicans despite the district’s red tilt.
With both parties viewing the contest as an early test of their messages ahead of the 2026 midterms, the December 2 special election in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District has become a closely watched measure of turnout and enthusiasm in a deep-red but newly competitive-seeming seat.
