Republicans have won a closely fought congressional election in Tennessee, US media forecast, after a race that was seen as a test of whether Democrats could make a comeback next year.
With nearly all the votes counted, Republican Matt Van Epps was on track to beat Democrat Aftin Behn by about nine percentage points.
This will ensure that Republicans maintain a slim majority in the House of Representatives. But their lead appears to be less than half what they achieved in the last vote just over a year ago.
“It was dangerous,” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said, reacting to the results.
“We could have lost this district because many of the people who came were motivated by how much they disliked President Trump,” Sen. Cruz said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday night.
He added that the results showed that the 2026 midterm elections will depend on which party is motivated to go to the polls.
“In a year there will be elections with turnout, and the left will emerge,” he said. “Hate is a powerful motivator.”
The special election has drawn national attention — and big spending — ahead of next year's midterm elections.
Although the 7th Congressional District vote took place in a reliably Republican region, some experts also saw it as a test of President Donald Trump's popularity in his second term.
Failure to hold on to the seat could be seen as a huge blow to Trump's Republicans and a sign that his electoral appeal may be waning.
In the end, Republicans retained the seat, but with a projected margin that appears to be well below the 22-point cushion they achieved in November 2024, the day Trump returned to the White House.
The area that was put up for sale stretches from the Alabama border to Kentucky and includes parts of the city of Nashville. No Democrat has been elected there in more than 40 years.
The seat was vacated after Republican Rep. Mark Green resigned in July to work in the private sector.
Both parties spent millions of dollars trying to support their candidate.
Senior party officials also visited the state to hold rallies.including former Democratic vice presidents Kamala Harris and Al Gore, and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Van Epps worked closely with Trump, who held a virtual rally to support his campaign.
After his victory, Van Epps said the result “showed that running from Trump is how you lose, and running with Trump is how you win.”
“Politicians who flee the president or abandon the common sense policies that the American people have given us a compelling mandate do so at their peril,” he added.
On Tuesday night, Trump congratulated Van Epps on social media, writing that “Radical Left Democrats have thrown everything at him, including millions of dollars.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson congratulated his Republican colleague, writing on X: “I look forward to working together to continue to lower costs, secure our borders, and advance our America First agenda.”
Democratic candidate Ben lost in every county except Davidson County, which includes the city of Nashville.
But at a campaign event on Tuesday night, Behn said that despite her defeat, she believed the result was “the start of something powerful,” adding that “nobody in Washington believed we could come even this close.”
Ian Russell, a Democratic Party official who advised Ben's campaign, told the BBC that Trump “had to spend millions of dollars to keep this seat.”
“Republicans did everything they could to keep this seat. This is a very, very bad sign for them heading into the midterm elections,” he said.
Some Republicans agreed. In an anonymous conversation with Politico, one House aide said the result was “too close.” Another House member told the same website: “Republicans can survive if we play as a team and Trump administration officials play smart. There is no certainty about either of these.”
Tennessee is still definitely Trump territory. He won the state last year with 64% of the vote, and he won 60% of the vote in the previous two presidential elections.
Van Epps is a military veteran who served nine tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was in a crowded primary where loyalty to Trump was the litmus test and the president's last-minute endorsement put him over the top.
Behn, meanwhile, has focused her campaign almost exclusively on issues of affordability and quality of life at the local level.
