Washington, D.C. comes to Nashville as Middle TN U.S. House seat draws national attention

Party control of the U.S. House won’t be on the ballot Dec. 2 when Nashville Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn and Nashville Republican Matt Van Epps, former Tennessee General Services commissioner, face off in a special election to fill Tennessee’s 7th U.S. Congressional District.

But with Democratic success nationally in November’s off-cycle elections, the party’s on the rise for the first time since President Donald Trump was elected in 2024, and the upcoming U.S. House race is drawing attention from national politicians and political action committees.

Last week, Trump held a “tele-rally” in which he said Van Epps was a “true America First patriot who has dedicated his entire life to serving our country.” The president’s political action committee also started spending money to back Van Epps.

Over the weekend, a Democratic-affiliated group called Your Community PAC launched a nearly half-million-dollar independent expenditure campaign attacking Van Epps, and Tuesday former Vice President Kamala Harris was in Nashville at a rally held by the Tennessee Democratic Party to encourage people to vote in the upcoming election. Harris attended the rally ahead of her appearance at the Ryman Auditorium as part of her book tour.

Harris called the election a fight “for the future” and about giving political power back to “the people,” but didn’t endorse Behn, who left before the former vice president arrived.

Republicans have held Tennessee’s 7th Congressional seat for more than 50 years, but it was redrawn in 2022 as part of state GOP lawmakers’ successful attempt to gerrymander the state map. The new district maps divided Nashville-Davidson County, historically a Democratic stronghold, across three districts, including the 7th.

Former U.S. Rep. Mark Green won the 7th by a 20% margin in the 2022 and 2024 elections, but this year’s race is the first time the seat will have to hold up in a political environment that, on the surface, doesn’t favor Republicans. Republicans won the 2022 and 2024 U.S. House elections nationwide as a referendum on former Democratic President Joe Biden, but this year, with Trump in power the 2025 election serves as a referendum on his administration’s actions, such as the continued increase in cost of living.

Green resigned from Congress in July, triggering the special election for the seat.

What are the candidates running on?

Behn narrowly bested a field of four candidates in the Democratic primary. In the state House, she sponsored measures to cut the state’s sales tax on groceries and to legalize and tax marijuana to pay for road construction.

Van Epps won a primary with nearly a dozen candidates, in part because of a last-minute endorsement from Trump and a significant boost from the pro-school-voucher Club for Growth, which ran advertisements attacking his main rival, state Rep. Jody Barrett. Van Epps has made his military experience as a former Army helicopter pilot a central theme of his campaign.

The 7th District is drawn to include all of the Clarksville area, where a high percentage of people are former military because of the proximity to Fort Campbell, a U.S. Army base.

Van Epps is running campaign advertisements saying he wants to “bring down prices, create good-paying jobs and lowering healthcare costs for working families.” During the primary, Van Epps ran advertisements calling himself a “MAGA warrior” who would take on “radical leftists.”

Behn emphasizes her view that corporate money shouldn’t be allowed in politics and ties Van Epps to rising healthcare costs.

During the most recent government shutdown, the Democratic Party tried to force the GOP to extend healthcare insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Nearly 650,000 Tennesseans are covered by government-subsidized health insurance plans, according to KFF.

Epstein files take center stage

Candidates launched attack ads the week after the primary, with Van Epps hitting Behn for her pro-choice abortion stance and protests of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sting operation in South Nashville this year.

Behn has attacked Van Epps over his initial lack of support to release the U.S. Department of Justice’s files about disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The release of the “Epstein files” has become a rallying cry for Democratic lawmakers across the country because of the late sex offender Epstein’s past ties to Trump. Van Epps backed the release of the files Tuesday, flipping from a previous stance and waiting until after it became clear that the U.S. House would vote to release them.

Trump in about-face urges US House Republicans to vote to release Epstein files

Behn is receiving independent support from a group called Your Community PAC, which Federal Election Commission disclosures show started spending more than $500,000 in mid-November. The group ran TV advertisements over the weekend attacking Van Epps by tying him to his previous stance on the release of the Epstein files.

The group has also sent out dual mailers encouraging Democrats to go to the polls and comparing Van Epps unfavorably to John Thorp, an independent in the race.

Your Community PAC’s money doesn’t link back to an individual donor but to a dark money group called the North Fund. The North Fund, as of 2024, was run by a Washington, D.C. consultant named Jim Gerstein, who has served as a pollster and independent expenditure campaign organizer in support of several Democratic Party candidates.

Van Epps has received more than $150,000 in independent support from Trump’s MAGA Inc. PAC and the Special Operations for America, a PAC supporting military candidates. So far, Club for Growth’s PAC, the School Freedom Fund, hasn’t spent any money to boost Van Epps or attack Behn in the general election.