Posted on 12/03/2025 6:46:45 AM PST by MtnClimber
As a resident of Nashville, I have been hearing nothing but the suddenly close race in the Tennessee 7th Congressional District election for the last couple of weeks.
It was all over the national news as well, even though the competitors, Matt Van Epps (R) and Aftyn Behn (D) were hardly household names. (The man they were replacing, the suddenly resigned Rep. Mark Green, was better known, though not always for the best reasons.)
The possibility that Behn would win in a district that Donald Trump won by 22 points in 2024 had Democrats and all the ships in their legacy media sea salivating. Would they be going for a third pickup after New Jersey and Virginia, but this time in a certifiably red state?
Better yet, Ms. Behn was a progressive’s progressive, already dubbed “Tennessee’s AOC.” This could be a national trend.
In fact, she made the Congresswoman from the Bronx and Queens seem almost conventional. Behn had been recorded making the craziest statements for a Nashvillian, such as that she hated Nashville, bachelorette parties and even country music. She should have been a sitting duck. Yes, the days of Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynne are behind us, but the music business and the attendant hospitality industry are still mainstays of this city’s economy. Why was Behn polling so well?
This was making a lot of people I know very nervous. At the end of my tennis game this evening, one of the other players—thinking I knew more than I do—asked me anxiously who would win, was his beloved state turning blue? Where would he move? He sounded like some New Yorkers I knew on the eve of the Mamdani victory.
(NOTE: I live in Davidson County, which is contiguous with Nashville, but did not vote in the election because my neighborhood is not in the district.}
Well, as it happens, Armageddon did not occur, and my tennis partner does not have to call his real estate broker. After all the sturm and drang, Van Epps won by a relatively comfortable nine percent. Behn won in Davidson by 51 points but lost in all five of the other counties that make up the 7th.
What does this mean? Not a lot. I would define it as “Much Ado About Nothing… Much.”
That, of course, will not stop the thumb suckers who already have their thumbs out and are ready to point blame. I predict two explanations:
One, typical Republican voter passivity, especially without Trump running.
Two, changed demographics. All those domestic p/p[ gtvyf migrants who have been moving from blue states to red states to escape state income tax have brought their blue state values with them.
While there might be some elements of truth here, I reject both of these overall.’
Regarding the passivity, it’s not the voters who are passive so much as the Republican leadership, starting at the top. This is true of several red states, but definitely of Tennessee. (Neighboring Georgia is worse.) The local GOP, with a few exceptions, never got in gear to seriously win this election against the target-rich Behn until the last couple of weeks. The Democrats had been going full tilt for a long while. Don’t blame the GOP voters.
Regarding demographics, I addressed this in my 2023 book American Refugees, which gives this Substack its title. In researching that book—and yes, it was largely anecdotal—I determined that most people who made the effort to cross the country with their families from blue states to live in red states were conservative. They had left their original states first and foremost because they couldn’t stand their progressive governments and the people who supported them. No state taxes were an added benefit, welcome certainly, but not the primary motivation.
If I am right, and I still think I am, although it may have tempered somewhat, those people are among the least likely to vote for an Aftyn Behn.
Beyond all this, however, the Democrats will find a way to declare victory in the Seventh. You can see that in the way Nate Cohn, The New York Times’ chief political analyst, summed it up: “Republican Matt Van Epps is the projected winner in Tennessee’s Seventh District. He’s on track to win by a modest margin, but one still well behind the usual Republican benchmarks in the district.”
GOP leadership in Tennessee and elsewhere better not be complacent.
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
i see media is downplaying win - probably trying to make us
forget how they told us it was “close.” well they told us for 3 months Mamdani was a shoo-in - and it worked. but not
this time. 8 points is not “neck and neck.” glad Rs held this seat and hope this shows Gruters can deliver turnout.
for a special election this was a more than respectable win for party in power.
...that was Trump and can’t easily be compared to anything. One of a kind.
Harris was an awful candidate too. My concern is R apathy when Trump isn’t on the ballot. The Rs have to end unsolicited mail-in balloting and un-manned drop boxes.
People are wising up to the fact that the good ol’ Republicans are opposed to Trump and his populist agenda, and saying “screw it, I’m just gonna get on with life”.
You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.
And
"Regarding the passivity, it’s not the voters who are passive so much as the Republican leadership, starting at the top."
Isn't this a cognitive dissonance? At least some of the Republican leadership is elected, and they WILL win future elections.
You can't receive good Republican leadership if you reward them for betraying you.
I think this is a big time cognitive dissonance. Look at how many times Kentucky voters rewarded Mitch McConnell for attacking conservatives instead of spending more time attacking Democrats. We see this cognitive dissonance all over the country.
“Above-it-all-ism” will be the death of us.
Republican Leadership is an oxymoron.
Yet TN is still one of the reddest states in the country. Losing by 9% is still a big loss.
After 2026, TN will still be one of the reddest states in the country. This is mostly blather from the democrats to divide us.
Accurate assessments and excellent proposal we all should follow (volunteering for 2026 — the sooner the better). In my area, State/local Republicans are invisible at election time, with barely known candidates and little or nothing to get loyalists to turn out and vote.
The 2025 elections in VA, NJ, and TN, confirm what we already know: People turn out to vote when they have a sense of crisis. Without it, they sit it out (due to laziness and avoidance of responsibility). Dems see Trump and MAGA as a crisis, so they turn out in droves to block reform. Reps feel more secure, believing (pretending) Trump and MAGA are rolling back the threats to American life and values, so they skip the by-elections until crisis is back in their faces. To get turnout, R’s need to convey that elections are always a crisis, with much lost or much gained. They could start with strong candidates and those already in office supporting a clear agenda.
The previous person was an incumbent, and no one seriously challenged them. This is not a time to worry.
Enough with facts. The media has a narrative to push and it will create its own facts, thank you very much. So back to the main story that Trump is only slightly more popular than an active case of herpes.
Or it could be that most normal Republican voters don’t live for politics and have normal lives.
The democrats are chicken little screaming “this is the end of the world”.
That’ll teach ‘em!
But why do republican voters continue to allow it? Why is there so much apathy among the GOP's voters???
The PVI (Partisan Voting Index) for this district is +10 Republicans. The vote outcome was +9 Republican after the Dems sunk millions of scarce dollars into it. I’m calling it a win.
My take away was the ridiculously low turn out. Look at how few people voted... that to me it terrifying. Our country is ripe for a color revolution because people are not exercising their agency... dear lord... the way to avoid a civil war is to actually use the power you have and the American population is so demoralized that very few do. On a happier note. There were 1 million ballots available that the democrats didn’t even try to steal. Make it make sense.
Republicans think locally, Democrats think nationally and globally.
To Republicans, if a candidate sucks, they won’t show up.
To Democrats, if a candidate has a ‘D’ next to their name, it helps the Revolution, regardless of who the candidate is.
We’d better start understanding this, or soon it will be too late.
Sure. It was an off year special election which affects things and probably other factors of which I am unaware.
Here are results from previous elections. The dems made some headway there.
Mark Green
2018 % vote 66.9% margin 34.8 points
2020 % vote 69.9% margin 42.6
2022 % vote 60.0% margin 21.9
2024 % vote 59.5% margin 21.5
Matt van Epps
2025 % vote 53.9% margin 9
Excellent post!
I do have concerns that the Republican party does not have a good voter turnout system.
_________________
For years, the traditional Republicans were very disciplined and showed on every election. The off elections were democrat problems. But now, Democrats build big ballot (not even voters, but ballots) turning machine, while Republican kind of rely on their voters to show up like they always did.
The new Trump republicans, unfortunately, are not that disciplined.
We need to catch up.
Scott Pressler and especially Charlie Kirk (RIP) are doing excellent job, but they are actually being somewhat looked down in some Rep. circles!
We need to double, triple, ... that effort!
Yes guys, go and volunteer!
And if the Rep party are doing nothing, join other orgs like Turning point USA!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.