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Tennessee special election - congressional seat

This topic can be found at:
https://sigforum.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/320601935/m/2020044815

December 02, 2025, 09:14 PM
Tn226
Tennessee special election - congressional seat
Republican Van Epps has been declared the winner over democrat Aftyn Behn by a 9% margin. Thank God.

Van Epps won every single county in the district by a substantial margin. The one exception was Davidson County where Behn took 78%. That was over a third her total vote count. She got most of the rest from two counties near Nashville known to be overrun by transplants from the usual blue state disasters.

Nashville - the city she bragged about hating amongst other trash talk. Apparently the liberal infested trash heap is well, liberal, i.e. nuts.
December 02, 2025, 09:21 PM
abnmacv
Don't follow Tennessee politics but the election result stuns me. I'd wanted to visit Nashville now I think I'll pass on that.


U.S. Army 11F4P Vietnam 69-70 NRA Life Member
December 02, 2025, 09:47 PM
sig2392
It never surprises me how people vote against their own interests and safety.

The clip I saw Aftyn Behn said she hated Nashville.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZkTqIpUzWI
December 02, 2025, 10:14 PM
12131
The leftists will spin this as it was much closer than the GOP wanted blah blah blah whatever. Well, you assholes still came up short.


Q






December 02, 2025, 10:26 PM
nhtagmember
there is a price for being stupid
December 03, 2025, 12:49 AM
egregore
A blonde AOC, all in on the "woke" business. Worse, in fact, because AOC at least doesn't hate the principal city of her district.

And I know people can't help the names their parents give them, but "Aftyn" sounds more like an antihistamine. (hat tip to Gutfeld)





"The Almighty, He put some livin' things on this earth so a man can eat." - Festus Haggen, Gunsmoke
December 03, 2025, 01:56 AM
KMitch200
quote:
Originally posted by 12131:
The leftists will spin this as it was much closer than the GOP wanted blah blah blah whatever. Well, you assholes still came up short.

There will be handwringing on political talk shows about how the margin was closer than they wanted it to be.
Well, piss off pundits!
He won, they lost. This is how it is done.
I don’t care if he won by l/2 a point, they still lost! Smile


--------
After the game, the King and the pawn go into the same box.
December 03, 2025, 07:38 AM
John Steed
quote:
Originally posted by Tn226:
... Thank God.
...
Those were the first words out of my mouth!

The people of Tennessee came up big when it counted.

I don't know how you could call a nine point margin "slender" but I'm sure some will.



... stirred anti-clockwise.
December 03, 2025, 07:53 AM
Anush
quote:
Don't follow Tennessee politics but the election result stuns me. I'd wanted to visit Nashville now I think I'll pass on that.


Not all of Nashville is in that district. The Vanderbilt, Tenn State University, along with the new high rise condo areas are the main portions in that district.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tennessee's+7th+Congressional+District,+TN/@36.1403449,-86.7871263,12z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x887c7987230c2455:0x7e53a7f30fdc84f8!8m2!3d36.0673163!4d-87.697554!16s%2Fm%2F025y82_?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTEzMC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D


__________________________________________________

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December 03, 2025, 08:01 AM
bigwagon
quote:
Originally posted by Tn226:
Republican Van Epps has been declared the winner over democrat Aftyn Behn by a 9% margin. Thank God.

Van Epps won every single county in the district by a substantial margin. The one exception was Davidson County where Behn took 78%. That was over a third her total vote count. She got most of the rest from two counties near Nashville known to be overrun by transplants from the usual blue state disasters.

Nashville - the city she bragged about hating amongst other trash talk. Apparently the liberal infested trash heap is well, liberal, i.e. nuts.

I wasn't following this race closely enough to know how much of the city of Nashville fell into the district, but it sounds like if all of the city was in it, the seat would swing blue. Not a good look for the Music City, but I suppose it's inevitable given the demographic shifts infecting so many cities like this.

If the Democrat candidate had actually been somewhat moderate rather than the raging leftwing nut job she is, it likely would have been an uncomfortably closer race.
December 03, 2025, 08:06 AM
HRK
quote:
Originally posted by 12131:
The leftists will spin this as it was much closer than the GOP wanted blah blah blah whatever. Well, you assholes still came up short.


https://punchbowl.news/article...s-tennessee-special/

Ask and ye shall receive....
December 03, 2025, 10:31 AM
pbslinger
quote:
If the Democrat candidate had actually been somewhat moderate rather than the raging leftwing nut job she is, it likely would have been an uncomfortably closer race.


bigwagon - Your analysis might apply to a sane electorate, but possibly her nutty comments only served to make them more likely to vote for her. They hate American and everything associated with it. Probably they were voting anti Trump and anything with a D next to it was all it took and Nashville and American culture hatred had little effect.

This sure is an alert that turnout will be very important at midterms. Start now to influence anyone you know to be sure they vote in 2026!
December 03, 2025, 10:44 AM
Jupiter
quote:
Originally posted by sig2392:
It never surprises me how people vote against their own interests and safety.

The clip I saw Aftyn Behn said she hated Nashville.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZkTqIpUzWI


Glad to see she went down in flames.

Tennessee has done some strange things lately. Like making it a felony to sleep in a public place. Roll Eyes


Diligentia, Vis, Celeritas

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
-- George Orwell

December 03, 2025, 11:30 AM
dking271
The votes she got were in a district loaded with Gen z girls between 24-30, who as a whole are liberal as can be with no critical thinking skills. Having been blasted with ads from the both candidates her ads offered zero substance with touchy feely platitudes. Make healthcare affordable… fix affordability… fix healthcare… but no plan beyond tax the wealthy. Having a 26 y/o single conservative son navigating in the Nashville dating pool, his assessment is frightening. I never in my lifetime could have conceived of that an openly socialist/communist candidate could have been elected into our government but here we stand. The media and polls were calling this a dead heat and probably convinced some otherwise non voters that they had a chance if they showed up at the polls. Either way, we dodged a bullet sending that pinhead packing. Californians did definitely invade our tax friendly state. Most I’ve met are conservative “light” by our TN standards, but are voting mostly red.

As to the socialists comments about Nashville and how much she hated it. She wasn’t wrong. The tourism that the city has built revolves completely around alcohol. Yeah, there’s country music but it’s an afterthought to the bars usually used by putting some singers name on the place. Flying out of BNA on a Sunday night or Monday morning has the reminiscent feel of 90s Las Vegas except it’s mostly young women looking tired and full of regret. There are pedal bars everywhere and now they even have a large rolling barge bar towed around the city by a farm tractor. The city is unrecognizable from a decade ago.


_________________________
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last” - Winston Churchil
December 03, 2025, 01:18 PM
220-9er
quote:
Originally posted by 12131:
The leftists will spin this as it was much closer than the GOP wanted blah blah blah whatever. Well, you assholes still came up short.


They keep saying how bad the Republicans are polling while failing to mention the Democrats numbers are even worse.
People are just tired of politicians of all stripes.


___________________________
Avoid buying ChiCom/CCP products whenever possible.
December 03, 2025, 01:47 PM
Tejas421
District 7 encompasses the western portion of Davidson County, including the central and western portions of Nashville. The vast majority of District 7's geography extends several counties to the north, west and southwest of Nashville. The city of Nashville and a large portion of Davidson County are leftwing while the surrounding counties lean rightwards.

Special elections usually have low voter turnout so the democrat strategy was to gin up votes in Nashville/Davidson County while hoping for low turnout in the surrounding counties. They put metric tons of money into this election. Everywhere I turned, TV, radio, social media, email, messages, telephone calls, I was confronted by Aftyn Behn commercials and supporters. I had one lady living in Oregon call to pitch Behn. I even had three different sets of Behn supporters knock on my front door. This was a major push with national resources behind it.

Even with all this support Behn still lost by nine percentage points. My take is she and the democrats have nothing to brag about and they still lack an effective message against the republicans.
December 03, 2025, 02:12 PM
stoic-one
Solid stuff here:

https://x.com/MattBraynard/status/1996065000847257634



quote:

The media will make a big deal about how much closer the TN-7 special was than the Presidential as some kind of referendum, but this is fundamentally dumb. Don't fall for it.

I'm probably the only person who’s going to explain the reality to you and no media outlet is going to have me on, so you'll have to read it right here.

In the 2024 Congressional Election:

A strong long-time incumbent ran with zero primary (Mark Green) and outspent the Democrat 2.2m to 1.2m and there was no outside money involved on either side. Green won by 21.5 percent.

In the 2024 Presidential Election in this district, effectively zero money was spent by either Presidential campaign and Republicans were energized in a state they were always expected to win.

In the 2025 Special Election:

Republicans fought a brutal and very nasty primary and the eventual winner Van Epps walked away with barely 50 percent of the vote.

The Democrat raised a lot of money and had substantial outside investment in turnout in the urban parts of the district. This is evidenced by the largest swing being in the most black/Democrat county Davidson which Behn won by 56 points.

When both the D and the R campaigns are fully funded and have strong outside support, this district is more competitive than when there is minimal spending here. But even with the D getting full support, it’s still an L for them, so in the general election this money will instead go to more competitive districts and Republican money will also go elsewhere. Republicans will be better united as time heals divisions from the primary and the typical margin of victory will return.

One factor here is that Dem money does a better job turning their voters out than Republican money does turning our voters out and that’s a discussion for another day.



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December 04, 2025, 07:48 AM
calugo
quote:
Originally posted by nhtagmember:
there is a price for being stupid


Yup its mind boggling and people pay it everyday with high cost of living, high property taxes, high crime, high fees, declining schools and cities and while people complain about all these things they blindly continue to vote for the sane people and policies so nothing gets better just worse.
December 05, 2025, 11:19 AM
4MUL8R
I was talking to customer service in Maryville TN the other day. We touched on my hometown, and for some reason the special election came up. The loser of the election went to my high school, apparently. Makes me wonder what transformative information might be given to students these days? I known in the late 1970s we were on the straight and narrow.


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Trying to simplify my life...
December 05, 2025, 11:54 AM
jljones
quote:
Originally posted by calugo:
quote:
Originally posted by nhtagmember:
there is a price for being stupid


Yup its mind boggling and people pay it everyday with high cost of living, high property taxes, high crime, high fees, declining schools and cities and while people complain about all these things they blindly continue to vote for the sane people and policies so nothing gets better just worse.


Worst part is usually they will end of fleeing the utopia they voted for because they can’t afford it. Then they try to start the cycle again at their new location


________________
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