Can Aftyn Behn Stun the GOP in Tennessee Next Week?

In the suburban and rural counties around Nashville, Tennessee, drivers passing under the bridges above area highways are witnessing a new phenomenon: “bridge brigades” holding aloft American flags, cheering, and pointing to brightly lit signs urging “Vote Aftyn.”

What’s striking is that “Aftyn” is a Democrat—State Representative Aftyn Behn—who is running what looks to be a competitive race for an open congressional seat in a historically Republican and, more recently, pro-Trump district.

Republicans have taken a beating recently, what with the sweeping rejection of Republican candidates in the November 4 off-year elections for the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia, along with victories for Democrats in three Pennsylvania State Supreme Court seats, state and local posts in Georgia, legislative seats in Mississippi, and so many other contests around the country. But if Behn, a 36-year-old former community organizer, can win the special election in Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District on December 2, she might pull off the biggest upset of the year. That’s because, unlike Democrats in some of the other marquee 2025 contests, she’s fighting to flip a seat where the party has not been competitive for a long time.

And fresh data suggests she’s within range of a win. Emerson College Polling, one of the most respected survey research groups in the country, released a poll Wednesday morning that has Behn at 46 percent, versus 48 percent for corporate Republican Matt Van Epps.

With at least 5 percent of the voters in the Tennessee district undecided, this is now a “within-the-margin-of-error” race that Behn says she can win. “I woke up with the energy of a thousand Dolly Partons,” she said as she was canvassing Wednesday morning. To voters, especially the young people that her campaign has energized, Behn announced, “You have the opportunity of a lifetime to flip a congressional district.”

In a district that has been so Republican red for so long, this is still an uphill race. But national Democrats, activist groups such as Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), and a growing number of pundits share Behn’s view that something is big happening in Tennessee this fall. In addition to the encouraging poll numbers, her campaign notes that The Cook Political Report has moved the race from “Solid Republican” to “Lean Republican” and that early voting patterns have suggested that Democratic enthusiasm is surging.

That’s got Republicans scared. On Tuesday, President Trump took to social media—employing urgent ALL-CAPS messaging—to try to pump up enthusiasm among Republicans in the district. And as national GOP committees and their conservative allies are mounting a last-minute ad blitz on Nashville TV, The New York Times reports: “Republicans have grown nervous about a House special election that could show whether the political environment continues to shift leftward.”

Even as the president and right-wing special interests try to stop her, however, Behn says frustration with Trump’s economic policies and erratic approach to governing have opened a rare pathway for her candidacy.

“With all the chaos of Washington, I think a lot of voters have the same sentiment of [asking]: Why would we send another Republican to go up to a government, a system, which they broke?” Behn explains in an interview with The Nation.

“I think a lot of people gave Trump a chance,” Behn says of the 2024 election, in which the Republican swept back into power with a GOP-led Congress. But “after nine months of absolute chaos, people’s bank accounts haven’t increased, the grocery costs haven’t decreased, and people are still struggling.”

With economic frustration mounting, Behn says, “we have built a coalition of the disenchanted, a coalition of the pissed off. I’ve always said on the campaign trail, ‘If you’re upset about the cost of living and the chaos of Washington, then I’m your candidate.’”

The question, of course, is whether that coalition can move the needle sufficiently to give Democrats a win in a district where they have failed to win even 40 percent of the vote in recent election cycles and where—before a redraw of Tennessee congressional lines following the 2020 Census—their candidates often struggled to win 25 percent of the vote. Trump won the district by 17 points in 2016, by 15 points in 2020, and by a staggering 22 points in 2024.

So what’s happening now? Behn argues that something of “a perfect storm” has developed in her race against Van Epps, a Republican insider who has spent much of his campaign time appearing on Fox News. While Republicans are dispirited—and, at least in some cases, giving up on their party—Democrats are fired up. That’s especially true in the multiracial section of Nashville that’s included in the seventh district, much of which Behn, one of the Tennessee House’s most progressive members, represents in the state legislature.

“I have a very progressive and engaged district, and I had the highest total voter turnout of any Democratic state representative in the 2024 cycle,” notes Behn, who has poured energy into organizing voters in her legislative district, along with other parts of Nashville and surrounding Davidson County. “I know how to mobilize Democrats,” she says, “and if I can mobilize the rest of Davidson County, we can win this.”

But Behn’s strategy does not stop at the county line. In more-Republican rural areas outside Davidson County, she is trying to reach voters who may not have cast a Democratic ballot in years. As someone who got her start as a community organizer in rural regions of the state, Behn has found allies among Tennesseans who are concerned that Medicaid cuts will lead to closures and cutbacks for small-town hospitals. She’s also found that her progressive stances—including calls for taxing billionaires, cracking down on corporate wrongdoing, supporting workers, and ending the assault on Gaza—have resonated with voters who are longing for moral courage. And for a voice in Washington.

“I received an e-mail from a Republican, a lifelong Republican, that lives in Clarksville [a city in Montgomery County, a former Democratic stronghold that backed Trump in 2024] that said, ‘I am a lifelong Republican, I’ve never voted for a Democrat in my life. But my family receives subsidies via the Affordable Care Act, and without them we won’t be able to afford health insurance.… I will vote for you if you commit to ensuring these subsidies [continue],’” recalls Behn. “I said, ‘Yes, of course. Of course.… I have a track record of fighting for the solvency of the ACA.”

Behn has made her advocacy for access to healthcare, along with her boldness in embracing affordability issues and criticizing the Republican-backed “Big Ugly Bill,” central to her message as the special election approaches. With support from labor unions and progressive groups like PDA, she has aired television ads that bluntly declare, “I’m Aftyn Behn. We all know the system is rigged in Washington. Here’s how it works: Politicians make it easy for their rich donors—tax cuts for billionaires, and burying the Epstein files. While hardworking Tennesseans get a rough ride by cutting healthcare for Tennessee families, doubling health insurance premiums and tariffs that hurt our economy.”

Behn appeal has caught the attention of national Democrats, who know that a win in Tennessee would be a huge breakthrough for them. It’s also got Republicans and their special-interest allies scared, and they have launched an expensive attack campaign against Behn in hopes of preventing an upset on December 2. The attacks have grown increasingly personal and intense as election day approaches.

But Behn says, “This race is winnable—not someday, not theoretically, but right now.” Referencing early voting patterns, she argues, “Voters are showing up because they’re hungry for leadership that will fight for affordable healthcare and hold corporate power accountable.”