\n Aftyn Behn, the Democratic nominee for next week\u2019s special election in a heavily Republican Tennessee congressional district, has made affordability concerns a centerpiece of her campaign messaging \u2013 mirroring the playbook<\/a> of the party\u2019s victorious candidates for governor in Virginia and New Jersey earlier this month.\n <\/p>\n \n Tuesday\u2019s contest is poised to test just how far Democrats can ride that argument in a district that President Donald Trump<\/a> carried by 22 points last November.\n <\/p>\n \n Republicans are hoping the district\u2019s partisan lean, combined with Behn\u2019s progressive profile and recently resurfaced remarks on policing and other issues, will tilt the race in their favor. Democrats, meanwhile, are banking that voters\u2019 frustration over the GOP agenda in Washington could help them significantly overperform in a race that otherwise wouldn\u2019t be competitive.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI\u2019ve always said, I don\u2019t care who you voted for,\u201d Behn told CNN in an interview. \u201cI don\u2019t care what political party you belong to, but if you are upset about the cost of living and the chaos of Washington, then I\u2019m your candidate, and I welcome you with open arms.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The 7th Congressional District, which became vacant earlier this year when former GOP Rep. Mark Green resigned<\/a>, includes parts of Nashville but is largely rural, stretching from the state\u2019s border with Kentucky in the north to Alabama in the south. As part of the 2022 redistricting process, Tennessee GOP lawmakers redrew Nashville<\/a> from one solidly Democratic district \u2013 long held by moderate Rep. Jim Cooper \u2013 into three seats that favored Republicans.\n <\/p>\n \n Despite Republicans\u2019 advantage in the district, Democrats saw an opportunity to go on offense after their party\u2019s total vote count in the October primary<\/a> came about 6,000 shy of the number of ballots cast in the GOP primary. Behn, a state representative and progressive organizer, narrowly won the four-way Democratic primary. Matt Van Epps, a combat veteran and member of the Tennessee Army National Guard running with Trump\u2019s endorsement, beat 10 other candidates to win the Republican nomination.\n <\/p>\n \n The special election has attracted millions of dollars in spending from outside groups and visits from national figures such as former Vice President Kamala Harris, with both parties eyeing it as the last major gauge of the country\u2019s political environment before the calendar turns to 2026.\n <\/p>\n \n On Monday, Trump will hold his second tele-rally for Van Epps, this time alongside House Speaker Mike Johnson, the candidate\u2019s campaign confirmed. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will also hold a tele-rally for Behn the same day, a source familiar told CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n Of the more than $4 million spent on advertising in the race since the October primary, according to AdImpact, nearly $2.5 million has come from Republicans \u2013 much of that focused on painting Behn as out-of-step with the district, highlighting her past comments on topics such as defunding the police. One ad from the Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc. includes a clip of Behn describing herself as \u201ca very radical person.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Opponents have also mined episodes of her podcast including one from 2020 where she talked about her dislike of country music and Nashville\u2019s status as a popular tourist destination, as well as a video Behn recorded in May while monitoring immigration operations in her district in which she said she was \u201cbullying the ICE vehicles and state troopers.\u201d (Behn said her use of the word bullying was satire.)\n <\/p>\n \n In her interview with CNN, Behn suggested Republicans have \u201cbeen caught flat-footed, and they have resorted to personal attacks and character assassination.\u201d Addressing the flurry of reports about her past comments in the final weeks of the campaign, Behn claimed they were \u201ctaken out of context and\/or mischaracterized.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Behn added that she was not a lawmaker at the time she made many of the comments, and she\u2019s since \u201cmatured\u201d and shifted in the way she approaches politics now that she\u2019s a state representative and not solely an activist.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI\u2019ve learned a lot, and I would hope that voters in the 7th District would give me the benefit of the doubt, that despite whatever \u2026 is being resurfaced right now, that I\u2019m someone who has a track record of trying to unrig the system in favor of working people,\u201d she told CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n Tennessee Democrats told CNN they believe voters in the district will weigh other concerns when deciding on their vote in the election.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s really all about the mess in Washington,\u201d said Cooper, referring to the deciding factor of the race. \u201cIt\u2019s a very important chance for Tennessee voters in one of the most beautiful parts of Tennessee to really speak loudly and clearly and say, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re upset, we need some help, and we\u2019re looking for somebody who\u2019s gonna help us.\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Behn\u2019s campaign sees the millions that Republicans are pouring into the race as a sign of growing GOP concern. One campaign adviser pointed to a recent ad from Van Epps in which the Republican nominee does not mention the president, but leans into messaging about bringing down costs and making health care more affordable.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe type of content that you\u2019re seeing from Matt Van Epps is what you\u2019d expect to see from a Blue Dog Democrat in a district that Trump won by five points, not from a Republican in a district that Trump won by 22,\u201d said Ian Russell.\n <\/p>\n \n Even as Democrats outperform their 2024 margins in special elections this year, both parties see Van Epps as the favorite heading into Tuesday. \u201cWith strong conservative turnout, we will have a win next Tuesday, and I\u2019ll hit the ground running, working with President Trump to lower the cost of living for hardworking Tennessee families,\u201d Van Epps said in a statement to CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n Still, Republicans are bracing for a result that will be closer than the more than 20-point margins posted by Trump and Green a year ago.\n <\/p>\n \n Chip Saltsman, a Nashville-based Republican strategist not working with the Van Epps campaign, said that unlike Green, an incumbent and former state lawmaker who represented part of the district before the 2022 redistricting, Van Epps is a first-time candidate. He added that while he still expects Van Epps to win, Democrats had done a better job of quickly pivoting to the general election.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019ve been so focused on the Republican primary, because that\u2019s really the only game in town for most of the state,\u201d Saltsman said. \u201cRepublicans got a little bit of a late start in reminding [voters] that there is actually a general election.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Scott Golden, the chair of the Tennessee Republican Party, said the party was working to get Van Epps\u2019 message out there, but argued it may been getting lost in the news about Behn\u2019s past comments.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019re not nervous that we\u2019re going to lose, but we have to make sure that we work every single second,\u201d Golden said.\n <\/p>\n \n Behn has made health care and grocery affordability a central part of her message, which she argues has been a common theme of her activism and political work.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI\u2019m someone who hasn\u2019t equivocated on affordability,\u201d she said. \u201cIt has always been my ethos and my organizing agenda, legislative agenda, to make things more affordable for Tennesseans.\n <\/p>\n \n Born and raised in Knoxville, Behn attended college in Austin and moved back to Tennessee during Trump\u2019s first term in office. While the president and Republicans pursued their failed 2017 effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, she worked as a community health care organizer for the Tennessee Justice Center, a non-profit law firm based in Nashville.\n <\/p>\n \n During her time as a national organizer for Indivisible, a progressive grassroots group, Behn took a leave of absence to help organize protests against the expulsion of two Black lawmakers<\/a> who protested on the state House floor in favor of gun control. The experience, she said, inspired her to run in a September 2023 special election for a Nashville-area state legislature seat.\n <\/p>\n \n She\u2019s emphasized her efforts to repeal the state\u2019s four percent grocery tax<\/a>, her work advocating against cuts to Medicaid and the cost-of-living issues she says Republicans in Washington have failed to address.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThis race is competitive because the Washington Republican agenda has not delivered,\u201d Behn said. \u201cThey have not addressed costs despite the commitment from the Trump administration to make groceries cheaper, utilities cheaper, rent cheaper \u2026 and I think people are looking for an opportunity to vote for someone who\u2019s going to usher in an era of change.\u201d\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Aftyn Behn, the Democratic nominee for next week\u2019s special election in a heavily Republican Tennessee congressional district, has made affordability concerns a centerpiece of her campaign messaging \u2013 mirroring the playbook of the party\u2019s victorious candidates for governor in Virginia and New Jersey earlier this month. Tuesday\u2019s contest is poised to test just how far … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/How-far-can-Democrats-ride-the-affordability-argument-A-progressive.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11660,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11658\/revisions\/11660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Aftyn](\"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/usatsi-27477545.jpg\")
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