Voters in Tennessee have elected Republican Matt Van Epps to fill a vacant US House of Representatives seat, padding the narrow lead by President Donald Trump’s party in the chamber heading into the midterm elections.
Van Epps, a former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services, defeated Democratic state representative Aftyn Behn on Tuesday, media outlets including the Associated Press and NBC News projected.
Van Epps will fill the seat vacated by former representative Mark Green, who resigned in July.
Trump won the district by 22 points in 2024, and both Trump and Green endorsed Van Epps.
A survey by Emerson College Polling/The Hill released last week suggested it could be a tight race.
An upset by the Democrat in the off-cycle election would have whittled away at Republicans’ 219-213 House majority.
In a statement, Van Epps thanked Trump “for his unwavering support”, adding: “President Trump was all-in with us. That made the difference. In Congress, I’ll be all-in with him.”
Democrats overperformed their party’s margins in the 2024 presidential election by an average of 18 points in the four prior special congressional elections this year in Florida, Virginia and Arizona.
The party also retook the governor’s mansion in Virginia in November, and California voters approved a ballot initiative to redraw the state’s congressional map to flip as many as five Republican-held seats amid a national mid-decade redistricting battle heading into the 2026 midterm elections.
Republican and Democratic-aligned fundraising groups poured millions of dollars into the race.
Republicans painted Behn as a radical leftist, highlighting some of her past comments, including since-deleted tweets from 2020 in which she called for defunding the police.
When pressed on those tweets recently by cable TV channel MS NOW, Behn said she did not recall them and wanted to focus on cost-of-living challenges and other issues she argued were more important to voters.
A handful of retirements and special elections could further affect the chamber’s narrow balance of power in the months ahead.
Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene will vacate her Georgia seat on January 5.
Texas voters will elect a Democrat in a January 31 run-off to succeed the late representative Sylvester Turner, who died in March, and New Jersey voters will choose who will replace Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill, a recently departed House Democrat, on April 16.
Polling shows voters are concerned about the cost of living, including rising healthcare costs.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision not to administer the oath of office to Democrat Adelita Grijalva of Arizona until November 12 highlighted the importance of a single vote in the chamber.
Grijalva, who won a September 23 special election, provided the decisive signature on a petition to force a vote on legislation to compel the Justice Department to release files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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