Democratic congressional hopeful Aftyn Behn didn’t maintain again when describing how she actually feels about Nashville — the town she’s now working 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 all the 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 neighborhood organizer, is working 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 purple.
President Donald Trump carried the district by 22 factors in his 2024 White Home victory.
However the district consists of components of the Democratic stronghold of Nashville, Tennessee’s capital and its most populous metropolis, and a significant nationwide heart for the nation music business.
The district encompasses components of north and west Nashville, together with the downtown space which has lengthy been a extremely popular vacationer vacation spot.
“The Democrat working in a particular election for Tennessee’s seventh Congressional District, Aftyn Behn, is working on the message: ‘I hate this place, elect me!’ Tennessee deserves higher,” the Republican Nationwide Committee (RNC) argued in a social media publish on Thursday.
Republican teams are pouring loads of assets into the particular election to keep away from the potential of a significant upset and defend 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 just lately, 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 publish Wednesday to the six-year-old opinion piece, requested, “If Behn hates Tennessee a lot, why is she making an attempt to characterize it?”
Kate Briefs, marketing campaign supervisor for Aftyn Behn for Congress, instructed Fox Information Digital in an announcement, “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 inexpensive by eliminating the state’s grocery tax.”
Van Epps, the previous commissioner of the Tennessee Division of Common Providers, 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 by 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 Celebration.
The Van Epps marketing campaign is asking the president to marketing campaign in individual within the district forward of the particular election.
In the meantime, Republican-aligned outdoors teams are spending huge 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 making an attempt 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 bother they’re once they should combat tooth and nail for a seat like this.”
