December 3, 2025
In what was turning into the most important special congressional election of the latter half of 2025, former state cabinet official and Afghan War veteran Matt Van Epps scored a 53.9 – 45.0% victory last night over state Rep. Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville) securing the district for the GOP and avoiding a Democratic partisan upset of national proportions.
The last published poll, from Emerson College (11/22-24; 600 TN-7 likely special election voters; multiple sampling techniques), found only a two-point spread in Mr. Van Epps’ favor, 48-46%. Outside allies from both parties individually spent seven figures to promote their ideological choice, understanding that the victory stakes were becoming unusually high for what should be a reliable Republican district.
Though the 7th CD was viewed as a safely Republican seat, Democrats, riding high with their big victories from the November 4 elections in New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia, believed they had a legitimate chance to record an upset win.
Though Mr. Van Epps did not reach the 60% level that President Donald Trump and resigned Rep. Mark Green (R) both attained in the 2024 general election, last night’s result was very close to the district’s partisan lean.
The Dave’s Redistricting App statisticians calculate a 55.1R – 42.2D partisan division for TN-7, which is close to where the candidates landed last night. The district performed as expected. Mr. Van Epps carried 13 of the district’s 14 counties, losing only Davidson, which is the Democrats’ base and contains Rep. Behn’s state House district in the city of Nashville.
Before 2021 redistricting, the 7th was more Republican. Democrats were added to the 7th in the most recent redraw to make the adjacent 5th district winnable for a GOP candidate, thereby lessening the 7th’s Republican strength.
Turnout for this special election was extremely high: 179,770 votes counted with 99% of the precincts reporting according to the latest available report. Typically, special congressional elections draw around 100,000 voters. Here, the high spending from both sides contributed to the large turnout, and also led to the Republicans successfully turning out its Trump vote base, something that was routinely not happening in other 2025 elections.
In those contests, mostly at the state legislative level we saw a few major Democratic upsets occur. Seeing such results was evidence that the Trump voter base failed to participate in sufficient numbers to carry Republican candidates in elections without the President on the ballot. The TN-7 win may give the Republican strategists the formula they need for improved GOP performances in next year’s midterm elections.
The House partisan division now moves to 220 Republicans and 213 Democrats, with two Democratic vacancies. The 18th district of Texas remains without an incumbent (death of Rep. Sylvester Turner) until the January 31 runoff election. New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill resigned her 11th district U.S. House seat after being elected her state’s governor.
On January 5, the Republican conference recedes to 219 when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is scheduled to resign. The House will likely return to a full 435-member compliment in April when the projected special election calendars will be set for the purpose of filling the latter vacancies.
