Tennessee nail-biter sees Republican Van Epps maintain House seat as far-left Dem rides blue tsunami to stunning end | EUROtoday

Republican Matt Van Epps has gained a particular election in a race that turned out to be surprisingly nearer than anticipated in an indication of the Republican Party’s growing unpopularity going into subsequent 12 months’s midterm elections.

Van Epps, an Army veteran, defeated Aftyn Behn, a progressive state legislator, with 53.2 % of the vote as of Tuesday night with 93 % of the vote being reported.

President Donald Trump was among the many first to congratulate Epps, writing posts on Truth Social Tuesday night after round 75 % of the votes had been counted.

“Congratulations to Matt Van Epps on his BIG Congressional WIN in the Great State of Tennessee. The Radical Left Democrats threw everything at him, including Millions of Dollars. Another great night for the Republican Party!!! President DJT.”

The election offers Republicans within the House of Representatives 220 seats. That quantity will go drop in January when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) exits Congress after her resignation.

Epps’ race with Behn turned out to be rather more aggressive in an space of the nation that voted for Trump by 22 factors simply 13 months in the past.

The closeness of the race indicators how laborious Republicans must work forward of subsequent 12 months’s mid-terms. A YouGov/Economist ballot confirmed that 45 % of voters would vote for a generic Democrat subsequent 12 months and 39 % would like a generic Republican.

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Both sides deployed their largest assets within the Tennessee race. House Speaker Mike Johnson spent a lot of Monday touring with Van Epps. He and Trump additionally held a tele-rally for Van Epps.

Behn acquired help from nationwide Democrats. Kamala Harris traveled to Tennessee to talk to volunteers at Fisk University, a traditionally Black faculty, as polling confirmed the race to be tighter than anticipated.

On Monday, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, held a tele-rally. Former Vice President Al Gore, who served as a senator from Tennessee, additionally appeared on the tele-rally.

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Republicans sought to color Behn not as a generic Republican however a radical. Behn gave them fertile floor with deleted tweets reportedly made about burning down police stations and defunding the police.

She got here beneath fireplace for an recording the place she mentioned in a podcast that “I hate the city. I hate the bachelorettes, I hate the pedal taverns, I hate country music. I hate all the things that make Nashville apparently an ‘it’ city, to the rest of the country.”

Still, the tightness of the race has brought about Democrats to be extra optimistic going into 2026. The identical YouGov/Economist ballot confirmed that solely 38 % of Americans approve of Trump’s efficiency as president.

That has translated into vital performances by Democrats in elections all through 2025.

In April, Democrats carried out higher than anticipated in two particular congressional elections in Florida and gained a Supreme Court race in Wisconsin by double digits. In August, they flipped a state legislative seat in Iowa, breaking the Republican supermajority.

Last month, they gained the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey by double digits and gained public service fee races in Georgia by huge margins.

Despite this, Johnson assured in his weekly press convention that Republicans would maintain the House.

“Republicans are not just going to hold on to the majority,” he mentioned. “We’re going to grow it.”

The election additionally reveals how uninvolved Trump has been within the welfare of the Republican Party now that he’s constitutionally ineligible to run for president once more.

As against the previous when the president would usually journey to swing districts to assist down poll Republicans, he phoned in an look in Tennessee when Johnson held up his cellphone to a microphone for Trump to talk to supporters on Monday.