US House election win boosts Republican majority
Voters in Tennessee elected Republican Matt Van Epps to fill the open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, completing President Donald Trump’s narrow lead in the chamber heading into the midterm elections.
Van Epps, the former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services, defeated Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn on Tuesday, according to projections from media outlets including the Associated Press and NBC News.
Van Epps will fill the seat vacated by former Rep. Mark Green, who resigned in July.
Trump won the district by 22 points in 2024, and both Trump and Green endorsed Van Epps.
A poll released last week by Emerson College Polling/The Hill suggested this could be a tight race.
A Democrat upset in the off-season election could weaken Republicans’ 219-213 House majority.
In his statement, Van Epps thanked Trump “for his unwavering support” and added: “President Trump was sharing everything with us. That’s what makes the difference. I will share everything with him in Congress.”
Democrats outpaced their party’s margins in the 2024 presidential election by an average of 18 points in four special congressional elections this year in Florida, Virginia and Arizona.
The party also took back the governor’s mansion in Virginia in November, and California voters approved a ballot initiative to redraw the state’s congressional map to flip five Republican-held seats amid a national decade-long redistricting battle heading into the 2026 midterm elections.
Fundraising groups aligned with Republicans and Democrats have poured millions of dollars into the race.
Republicans painted Behn as a radical leftist and highlighted some of her past comments, including since-deleted tweets from 2020 in which she called for defunding the police.
When pressed recently by cable TV channel MS NOW about those tweets, Behn said he didn’t remember them and wanted to focus on cost-of-living challenges and other issues he argued were more important to voters.
A handful of retirements and special elections could further impact the chamber’s narrow balance of power in the coming months.
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene will vacate her Georgia seat on January 5.
Texas voters will choose a Democrat in a Jan. 31 runoff election to replace the late representative Sylvester Turner, who died in March, and New Jersey voters will choose who will replace Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill, a newly departed House Democrat, on April 16.
Polls show 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 Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva until Nov. 12 underscored the importance of a single vote in the chamber.
Grijalva, who won the Sept. 23 special election, signed a petition that would force a vote on legislation that would force the Justice Department to release files on late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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