The 7th Congressional District race is turning out to be delightful. When I voted early, it certainly looked like everyone voting was doing so with a slight wry smile, as if we were all thinking “Haha.”
Republican Matt Van Epps — endorsed by Trump as well as previous 7th District U.S. Rep. Mark Green — was supposed to cakewalk his way into Washington. That was conventional wisdom. But it is obvious to anyone who is paying attention that Democrat Aftyn Behn has a very narrow window of opportunity here.
Farmers in the 7th District have been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs. The SNAP upheavals hit rural parts of the state especially hard, because they just can’t mobilize the number of churches and food banks and other resources that urban areas can. And the stink off of Epstein is so bad that, even if you have your head completely up your own butt for Trump, you can smell something is wrong with his relationship with the dead financier/sex trafficker.
The Democratic state rep is on a tight timeline ahead of December’s 7th Congressional District special election
Never mind that. If your position is that Democrats are a bunch of corrupt perverts who must be kept from power, your alternative in Tennessee right now is a bunch of corrupt perverts who must be kept from power. As proven by Trump's recent pardoning of Glen Casada and Cade Cothren, GOP stands for “Grand Old Pardon” in our state.
It's not particularly exciting to be a Republican right now, and I can’t imagine they feel much urgency to get out and vote.
Whereas voting for Behn is fun. If Behn annoys you, well, at least you’re forcing her to have to move into the district. But more so, you get to annoy Republicans, who have failed to find any criticism of her they can get any purchase with.
Yes, we’ve all heard from her opponents that she’s a "bitch." Note to dudes: Every woman is a "bitch" when she stands up for herself. Maybe some voters still think “she’s a bitch” is some kind of devastating revelation. For the rest of us, it’s a day ending in Y.
According to a 2020 podcast appearance, she doesn’t like downtown Nashville? Relatable. Nazis openly march there and accost Nashville children. People are getting roofied. It’s so crowded with drunken tourists that it’s really hard to get down there and do anything other than drink (especially since someone who shall remain nameless exploded a parking garage and shut down the library indefinitely). Plus, who is this argument supposed to appeal to? You know who really doesn’t like Nashville? Rural Tennesseans.
The Van Epps campaign has been trying to hammer home that Behn is working hand-in-hand with Nancy Pelosi — who is, let me remind everyone, retiring. They’re also insisting that a vote for Van Epps is a vote for Trump at a time when Trump is deeply unpopular — basically making the argument that if you’re sick of Trump, vote for Behn.
I think what happened here is obvious. Former U.S. Rep. Green set Van Epps up as his successor, and everyone looked around and saw what they thought was a deeply red district, and everyone — including Van Epps — decided they didn’t have to pay much attention to the campaign. I mean, in a state where people regularly almost go to jail before being pardoned by President Trump for being shady with political money, Van Epps’ campaign didn’t even bother to make sure his paperwork was square back in September. He, and people who should have known better, were coasting.
Nashville briefly gets the battleground spotlight as GOP money machine safeguards against an upset in Tennessee's 7th
They didn’t bother to learn anything about Behn. They didn’t bother to update their political playbook. And I guess they thought running around calling Behn a bitch would be devastating. Little did they know that Trump would then call a female reporter “piggy,” thus hilariously temporarily neutralizing gender-based insults. Either these words are devastating, degrading insults that are supposed to stop a woman in her tracks, or they’re just blunt talk that you can’t take to heart. Sadly for Van Epps’ camp, just when they needed the former to be true, the Trump administration is preaching the latter.
Van Epps comes across like a time-traveler from five months ago.
Which raises the question: Why is he even running? If you don’t care enough about the 7th District to pay any attention to what’s going on here or how the national climate is affecting people in the district, if you aren’t aware enough to realize that your Democratic opponent has momentum until voting has already started, if all you have to offer is “I’ll do what I’m told,” what are you doing?
It's as if he doesn’t really want the job. Which is fitting, because Mark Green didn’t really seem to want the job. It is as if being a Republican with a large Democratic minority in your district is challenging. As if gerrymandering the old 5th Congressional District — a Democratic stronghold for decades — into thirds has only served to make at least one, possibly three, Republican congressmen miserable.
To which I say: haha.
