Democratic congressional hopeful Aftyn Behn didn’t maintain again when describing how she actually feels about Nashville — the town she’s now operating to characterize — in a 2020 podcast that’s resurfaced simply days earlier than the Dec. 2 particular election.
“I hate the town, I hate the bachelorettes, I hate the pedal taverns, I hate nation music, I hate the entire issues that make Nashville apparently an ‘it’ metropolis to the remainder of the nation. However I hate it,” she mentioned within the podcast.
Behn, a Democratic state consultant and former healthcare group organizer, is operating towards Republican nominee Matt Van Epps to characterize Tennessee’s seventh Congressional District.
The winner will succeed former GOP Rep. Mark Inexperienced, who resigned from workplace in June to take a non-public sector job.
The district, which is positioned in central and western Tennessee and stretches from Kentucky to Alabama, is solidly crimson.
President Donald Trump carried the district by 22 factors in his 2024 White Home victory.
However the district contains components of the Democratic stronghold of Nashville, Tennessee’s capital and its most populous metropolis, and a significant nationwide middle for the nation music trade.
The district encompasses components of north and west Nashville, together with the downtown space which has lengthy been a very talked-about vacationer vacation spot.
“The Democrat operating in a particular election for Tennessee’s seventh Congressional District, Aftyn Behn, is operating on the message: ‘I hate this place, elect me!’ Tennessee deserves higher,” the Republican Nationwide Committee (RNC) argued in a social media submit on Thursday.
Republican teams are pouring loads of assets into the particular election to keep away from the potential of a significant upset and shield the GOP’s present razor-thin 219-214 majority within the Home.
Democrats, energized after their sweeping victories earlier this month within the 2025 elections, are optimistic about their possibilities within the particular election. Democratic Nationwide Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin, who campaigned with Behn not too long ago, argued that she has “a superb shot to win.”
Behn is taken into account by many Democrats as a rising progressive star who some have dubbed the “AOC of Tennessee.”
Republicans are additionally taking purpose at Behn over an op-ed titled “Tennessee is a racist state, and so is its legislature,” that appeared in a 2019 version of The Tennessean newspaper.
The RNC, pointing in a social media submit Wednesday to the six-year-old opinion piece, requested, “If Behn hates Tennessee a lot, why is she attempting to characterize it?”
Kate Briefs, marketing campaign supervisor for Aftyn Behn for Congress, informed Fox Information Digital in a press release, “Republicans are panicking and in a final ditched try, they’re distracting from the truth that Washington Republicans and Matt Van Epps are elevating prices on Tennessee households and ripping away their well being care whereas Aftyn Behn will decrease Tennessee households’ prices and make groceries extra reasonably priced by eliminating the state’s grocery tax.”
Van Epps, the previous commissioner of the Tennessee Division of Basic Companies, was endorsed by Trump, which boosted him to main victory final month in an 11-candidate race for the Republican congressional nomination.
Final week, Trump hosted a tele-rally for Van Epps during which he claimed Behn was a “Marxist” and linked her to Zohran Mamdani, the socialist mayor-elect of New York Metropolis, whom Republicans are aiming to make the brand new face of the Democratic Get together.
The Van Epps marketing campaign is asking the president to marketing campaign in particular person within the district forward of the particular election.
In the meantime, Republican-aligned exterior teams are spending massive bucks to run advertisements concentrating on Behn.
As Fox Information Digital first reported this week, the Trump-aligned tremendous PAC MAGA Inc. launched spots backed by a seven-figure purchase.
A Democratic strategist aware of the race touted that “that is already a win. The truth that Republicans have spent over $2 million attempting to carry a seat that Trump gained by 22 factors.
Whether or not or not Aftyn Behn wins, overperforms, or loses, it is a win for us as a result of Republicans know simply how in hassle they’re once they must combat tooth and nail for a seat like this.”
