When then-Rep. Mark Green announced his resignation from Congress in June, his Republican colleagues didn’t seem especially concerned about holding onto his seat in Tennessee. Green represented a district that Donald Trump won by 22 points; it has a partisan voter index score of R+10; and it was widely assumed that neither party would make much effort in the special election, since the outcome seemed a foregone conclusion.
At least, that was the conventional wisdom in June. In November, however, those assumptions have been largely usurped. The New York Times reported:
Former Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on Tuesday with the Democratic candidate in a closely watched Tennessee special election for Congress, marking the first time since she left office that she has returned to the campaign trail for another candidate. … Ms. Harris’s decision to campaign is the latest sign that the Dec. 2 election is being seriously contested. National party leaders now see the contest as an important test of the political environment before next year’s midterm elections.
The race pits Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn against Republican Matt Van Epps, and on paper, the GOP nominee — who won his primary thanks to an endorsement from Donald Trump — looks like a shoo-in.
But with the winds at Democrats’ backs, a contest that wasn’t supposed to be competitive has become unexpectedly interesting — to the point that Van Epps’ campaign manager conceded to a local outlet last week that he and his colleagues are “a little” concerned, especially after seeing the Democratic performance on Election Day 2025.
Harris’ appearance on Behn’s behalf, on the heels of Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin traveling to the local district, reinforced the fact that Democrats see an opportunity.
Republicans aren’t panicking, exactly, but they are opening their checkbooks for a race in which the party didn’t expect to break a sweat. The super PAC MAGA Inc., the top outside group aligned with Trump’s political operation, has begun spending money on Van Epps’ behalf, and the Republican National Committee is spending even more money on the race. I’m not making any predictions, but the fact that Republicans feel compelled to spend money in a Tennessee district that Trump won by 22 points is the sort of thing that should alarm GOP incumbents everywhere. For that matter, if the results in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District are close, it’s easy to imagine party-wide anxieties will reach new levels. Early voting is already underway and runs through Nov. 26. Election day is Dec. 2. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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