The Democrat has an actual probability to flip a deep-red congressional seat. In an unique interview, she explains why her bid is shaking up the politics of 2025 (and possibly 2026).
Within the suburban and rural counties round Nashville, Tennessee, drivers passing below the bridges above space highways are witnessing a brand new phenomenon: “bridge brigades” holding aloft American flags, cheering, and pointing to brightly lit indicators urging “Vote Aftyn.”
What’s hanging is that “Aftyn” is a Democrat—State Representative Aftyn Behn—who’s working what seems to be to be a aggressive race for an open congressional seat in a traditionally Republican and, extra just lately, pro-Trump district.
Republicans have taken a beating just lately, what with the sweeping rejection of Republican candidates within the November 4 off-year elections for the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia, together with victories for Democrats in three Pennsylvania State Supreme Court docket seats, state and native posts in Georgia, legislative seats in Mississippi, and so many different contests across the nation. But when Behn, a 36-year-old former neighborhood organizer, can win the particular election in Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District on December 2, she would possibly pull off the largest upset of the 12 months. That’s as a result of, in contrast to Democrats in a few of the different marquee 2025 contests, she’s combating to flip a seat the place the celebration has not been aggressive for a very long time.
And recent knowledge suggests she’s inside vary of a win. Emerson Faculty Polling, one of the vital revered survey analysis teams within the nation, released a poll Wednesday morning that has Behn at 46 %, versus 48 % for company Republican Matt Van Epps.
With at the very least 5 % of the voters within the Tennessee district undecided, that is now a “within-the-margin-of-error” race that Behn says she will be able to win. “I awoke with the vitality of a thousand Dolly Partons,” she mentioned as she was canvassing Wednesday morning. To voters, particularly the younger those that her marketing campaign has energized, Behn introduced, “You may have the chance of a lifetime to flip a congressional district.”
In a district that has been so Republican crimson for therefore lengthy, that is nonetheless an uphill race. However nationwide Democrats, activist teams comparable to Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), and a rising variety of pundits share Behn’s view that one thing is large occurring in Tennessee this fall. Along with the encouraging ballot numbers, her marketing campaign notes that The Cook Political Report has moved the race from “Stable Republican” to “Lean Republican” and that early voting patterns have recommended that Democratic enthusiasm is surging.
Present Challenge
That’s bought Republicans scared. On Tuesday, President Trump took to social media—employing urgent ALL-CAPS messaging—to attempt to pump up enthusiasm amongst Republicans within the district. And as nationwide GOP committees and their conservative allies are mounting a last-minute advert blitz on Nashville TV, The New York Occasions reports: “Republicans have grown nervous a couple of Home particular election that might present whether or not the political surroundings continues to shift leftward.”
Even because the president and right-wing particular pursuits attempt to cease her, nonetheless, Behn says frustration with Trump’s financial insurance policies and erratic method to governing have opened a uncommon pathway for her candidacy.
“With all of the chaos of Washington, I believe lots of voters have the identical sentiment of [asking]: Why would we ship one other Republican to go as much as a authorities, a system, which they broke?” Behn explains in an interview with The Nation.
“I believe lots of people gave Trump an opportunity,” Behn says of the 2024 election, by which the Republican swept again into energy with a GOP-led Congress. However “after 9 months of absolute chaos, folks’s financial institution accounts haven’t elevated, the grocery prices haven’t decreased, and individuals are nonetheless struggling.”
With financial frustration mounting, Behn says, “we’ve constructed a coalition of the disenchanted, a coalition of the pissed off. I’ve all the time mentioned on the marketing campaign path, ‘If you happen to’re upset about the price of dwelling and the chaos of Washington, then I’m your candidate.’”
The query, after all, is whether or not that coalition can transfer the needle sufficiently to provide Democrats a win in a district the place they’ve didn’t win even 40 % of the vote in current election cycles and the place—earlier than a redraw of Tennessee congressional traces following the 2020 Census—their candidates typically struggled to win 25 % of the vote. Trump gained the district by 17 factors in 2016, by 15 factors in 2020, and by a staggering 22 factors in 2024.
So what’s occurring now? Behn argues that one thing of “an ideal storm” has developed in her race towards Van Epps, a Republican insider who has spent a lot of his marketing campaign time showing on Fox Information. Whereas Republicans are dispirited—and, at the very least in some instances, giving up on their celebration—Democrats are fired up. That’s very true within the multiracial part of Nashville that’s included within the seventh district, a lot of which Behn, one of many Tennessee Home’s most progressive members, represents within the state legislature.
“I’ve a really progressive and engaged district, and I had the very best whole voter turnout of any Democratic state consultant within the 2024 cycle,” notes Behn, who has poured vitality into organizing voters in her legislative district, together with different components of Nashville and surrounding Davidson County. “I understand how to mobilize Democrats,” she says, “and if I can mobilize the remainder of Davidson County, we will win this.”
However Behn’s technique doesn’t cease on the county line. In additional-Republican rural areas outdoors Davidson County, she is attempting to succeed in voters who might not have forged a Democratic poll in years. As somebody who bought her begin as a neighborhood organizer in rural areas of the state, Behn has discovered allies amongst Tennesseans who’re involved that Medicaid cuts will result in closures and cutbacks for small-town hospitals. She’s additionally discovered that her progressive stances—together with requires taxing billionaires, cracking down on company wrongdoing, supporting employees, and ending the assault on Gaza—have resonated with voters who’re eager for ethical braveness. And for a voice in Washington.
“I acquired an e-mail from a Republican, a lifelong Republican, that lives in Clarksville [a city in Montgomery County, a former Democratic stronghold that backed Trump in 2024] that mentioned, ‘I’m a lifelong Republican, I’ve by no means voted for a Democrat in my life. However my household receives subsidies by way of the Reasonably priced Care Act, and with out them we gained’t be capable to afford medical insurance.… I’ll vote for you if you happen to commit to making sure these subsidies [continue],’” recollects Behn. “I mentioned, ‘Sure, after all. After all.… I’ve a observe document of combating for the solvency of the ACA.”
Behn has made her advocacy for entry to healthcare, alongside together with her boldness in embracing affordability points and criticizing the Republican-backed “Large Ugly Invoice,” central to her message because the particular election approaches. With assist from labor unions and progressive teams like PDA, she has aired tv advertisements that bluntly declare, “I’m Aftyn Behn. Everyone knows the system is rigged in Washington. Right here’s the way it works: Politicians make it simple for his or her wealthy donors—tax cuts for billionaires, and burying the Epstein recordsdata. Whereas hardworking Tennesseans get a tough experience by reducing healthcare for Tennessee households, doubling medical insurance premiums and tariffs that damage our economic system.”
Widespread
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Behn enchantment has caught the eye of nationwide Democrats, who know {that a} win in Tennessee could be an enormous breakthrough for them. It’s additionally bought Republicans and their special-interest allies scared, they usually have launched an costly assault marketing campaign towards Behn in hopes of stopping an upset on December 2. The assaults have grown more and more private and intense as election day approaches.
However Behn says, “This race is winnable—not sometime, not theoretically, however proper now.” Referencing early voting patterns, she argues, “Voters are exhibiting up as a result of they’re hungry for management that may battle for inexpensive healthcare and maintain company energy accountable.”
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