Free Republic

Republican Matt Van Epps held off Democrat Aftyn Behn in Tuesday’s hotly contested special election for Tennessee’s 7th District House seat, giving the GOP a much-needed electoral victory to close out a bumpy 2025. With 99% of the expected vote in, Van Epps — a former Army helicopter pilot endorsed by President Trump — led Behn by 8.9 percentage points, well below the 22-point margin by which Trump carried the district in last year’s presidential election. Behn, a 36-year-old state representative, had raised Democrats’ hopes for a stunning upset in the conservative stronghold after late polling showed her within striking...

Democratic Tennessee congressional candidate Aftyn Behn derailed a session in the Tennessee state Legislature by screaming at the top of her lungs as she was forcibly removed from the chamber in a resurfaced video from May 2019. Behn, who is currently running to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, got escorted out of the chamber by security as she dramatically yelled at the then-Republican Tennessee state Rep. David Byrd and former Tennessee House speaker Glen Casada to “resign,” according to footage posted by The Tennessee Holler. She was one of four protesters to camp outside of Byrd’s office in...

With less than two weeks to go before a special election in a Tennessee Congressional District, newly resurfaced audio shows how the Democratic candidate really feels about the seat she is running to represent. Aftyn Behn, a Nashville Democratic state representative who is her party's nominee, said she 'hates' the city that would anchor her potential congressional seat. 'I hate the city, I hate the bachelorettes, I hate the pedal taverns, I hate country music, I hate all of the things that make Nashville. I hate it,' Behn can be heard saying in the resurfaced clip from the GRITS podcast...