Republicans have won a hotly-contested congressional election in Tennessee, US media outlets are projecting, after a race that was viewed as a test of whether Democrats can mount a national comeback next year.
With all counties now reporting results, Republican Matt Van Epps is on course to beat Democrat Aftyn Behn by around nine percentage points.
That will ensure the Republicans retain their slender majority in the House of Representatives. But their margin of victory is set to be less than half of what it was last time, just over a year ago, which has caused anxiety for some in the party.
“It was dangerous,” said Republican Senator Ted Cruz while reacting to the results.
The special election attracted national attention – and big spending from both sides – ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Despite occurring in what is a reliably Republican area, the vote in the 7th Congressional District was also framed by some pundits as a test of President Donald Trump’s popularity during his second term.
Failure to hold the seat could have been seen as an enormous blow for Trump’s Republicans and an indication that his electoral appeal could be waning.
In the end, the Republicans did retain the seat – but with a projected margin that appears to be well below the 22-point cushion they achieved in November 2024, on the day Trump won his way back to the White House.
The district that was up for grabs stretches from the border of Alabama to Kentucky, and encompasses parts of the city of Nashville. No Democrat has been elected there in over 40 years.
The seat was vacated after Republican Congressman Mark Green resigned in July to work in the private sector.
Both parties spent millions of dollars in an effort to boost their candidate.
Top party officials also visited the state to hold rallies, including former Democratic Vice-Presidents Kamala Harris and Al Gore, and Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.
Van Epps had aligned himself closely with Trump, who held a virtual rally to support his campaign.
Following his victory, Van Epps said the result “showed running from Trump is how you lose, running with Trump is how you win”.
“Politicians who run from the president or abandon the common-sense policies that the American people gave us a resounding mandate on do so at their own peril,” he added.
Trump congratulated Van Epps on social media on Tuesday night, writing that “the Radical Left Democrats threw everything at him, including Millions of Dollars”.
House Speaker Mike Johnson offered his own congratulations to his Republican colleague, writing on X: “I look forward to working together to continue delivering lower costs, a secure border, and our America First agenda.”
Democratic candidate Behn wrote her own post on X, saying that the race had “proved to a nation that states like Tennessee are still worth fighting for”.
She added: “The margin was close, and that can only be attributed to the thousands of volunteers who showed out. This is just the beginning.”
Behn lost in every county except for Davidson County, which contains the city of Nashville.
But at a campaign event on Tuesday night, Behn said that despite her loss, she believed the result was “the beginning of something powerful”, adding that “nobody in Washington believed we could get even this close”.
Ian Russell, a Democratic operative who consulted for the Behn campaign, told the BBC that Trump “had to spend millions of dollars to hold this seat”.
“Republicans went all out to keep this seat. This is a very, very bad sign for them heading into the midterms,” he said.
Some Republicans agreed. Speaking anonymously to Politico, one House aide said the result had been “too close”. Another House member told the same website: “Republicans can survive if we play team and the Trump administration officials play smart. Neither is certain.”
In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday evening, Republican Senator Cruz said the party “could have lost this district because the people who showed up, many of them are the ones that are motivated by how much they dislike President Trump”.
He suggested that the results showed the midterm elections in 2026 would be about which party’s supporters were better motivated to head to the polls.
“In a year, it’s going to be a turnout election, and the left will show up,” he said. “Hate is a powerful motivator.”
Tennessee is still decidedly Trump terrain. He won the state with 64% of the vote last year and topped 60% the previous two presidential elections.
Van Epps is a military veteran who served nine tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He ran in a crowded primary where loyalty to Trump was a litmus test – and a last-minute endorsement by the president put him over the top.
Behn, meanwhile, focused her campaign almost exclusively on affordability and local quality of life issues.
By BBC News
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