Both parties found reasons to celebrate Republican Matt Van Epps’ victory in Tuesday’s special election for Tennessee’s 7th District, with the GOP publicly hailing the win itself and Democrats cheering that the race for the deep-red seat was close at all.
Van Epps, an Army veteran and former state commissioner, defeated Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn by 9 points to succeed Republican Mark E. Green, who resigned over the summer to take a private sector job. He’s set to be sworn in to the House on Thursday, bringing the GOP conference back up to full strength at 220 members – at least for a few weeks.
But Van Epps’ win came with a narrower margin compared with what Republicans posted a little over a year ago, when Donald Trump carried the 7th District by 22 points and Green won a fourth term by a similar margin.
