By Nolan D. McCaskill
WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) – Voters in Tennessee will choose their next representative in a special election on Tuesday that will affect Republicans’ narrow grip on the U.S. House of Representatives heading into next year’s midterm elections.
Republican Matt Van Epps, a former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services, is favored over Democratic state Representative Aftyn Behn to fill the seat vacated by former Representative Mark Green, who resigned in July. The Middle Tennessee district includes parts of Nashville.
President Donald Trump won the district by 22 points in 2024, and both Trump and Green have endorsed Van Epps. A survey by Emerson College Polling/The Hill released on Wednesday suggested it could be a tight race.
An upset by the Democrat in the off-cycle election following a holiday weekend could whittle away at Republicans’ 219-213 House majority.
OTHER SPECIAL ELECTIONS TO AFFECT HOUSE STANDINGS
Democrats have overperformed their party’s margins in the 2024 presidential election by an average of 18 points in the four special congressional elections this year in Florida, Virginia and Arizona. The party also retook the governor’s mansion in Virginia last month, 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 next year’s midterm elections.
Behn outraised Van Epps by nearly $240,000 through November 12, according to federal election filings. Republican and Democratic super PACs have poured millions of dollars into the race.
Republicans have sought to paint Behn as a radical leftist by 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 upcoming 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 runoff 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. Democrats instigated a record 43-day government shutdown over the issue after funding for federal agencies ran dry on October 1. Eight Senate Democrats eventually agreed to vote with Republicans to end the stalemate in exchange for a vote on a healthcare bill later this month. Democrats want to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire for 24 million people at the end of the year.
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 unclassified files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
(Reporting by Nolan D. McCaskill; additional reporting by Nathan Layne; editing by Scott Malone and Rod Nickel)
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