WASHINGTON — Tennessee’s first congressional special election in nearly 40 years has drawn over a dozen candidates seeking to succeed Republican former Rep. Mark E. Green, who resigned this summer following passage of his party’s sweeping tax and spending package.

The Oct. 7 primaries, when voters in the 7th District will pick their nominees from 11 Republicans and four Democrats, have drawn several state lawmakers seeking to succeed Green, in addition to a handful of first-time candidates. Early voting ends Thursday, and the primary winners will advance to a Dec. 2 general election.

For Republicans, the race represents an opportunity to get their caucus back to full strength in the narrowly divided House. The GOP nominee should start out as the favorite to hold the district, which includes parts of Nashville and extends into Middle and West Tennessee. Donald Trump carried the seat by 22 points last fall, according to calculations by The Downballot, while Green won a fourth term by a similar margin.

But Democrats are hopeful that the overperformances many of their candidates have had in special elections around the country this year will extend to the Tennessee race. In all four House special elections this year, Democratic candidates improved on their party’s 2024 margins by double digits.

There’s been limited public polling of the 7th District race, but the 11-way Republican primary has largely focused on four candidates: Army veteran Matt Van Epps, who previously served in Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s cabinet, and state Reps. Jody Barrett, Lee Reeves and Gino Bulso.

Among the Republicans, there are relatively few policy differences. All have positioned themselves as staunch allies of Trump, who has not weighed in with an endorsement. Green endorsed Van Epps, a first-time candidate who has also drawn support from House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio.

Outside groups in recent weeks have poured money into the district on ads, mailers and phone calls seeking to influence the Republican primary.

The School Freedom Fund, an arm of the conservative Club for Growth, spent $649,000 through Sept. 29 opposing Barrett, who in the legislature earlier this year voted against the governor’s plan to create a school voucher program. A digital ad from the group called Barrett “slippery as a snake in the swamp.”

Barrett said in an interview that he voted against the program “largely because my district was overwhelmingly opposed to it.”

The second-term state legislator said school vouchers weren’t as beneficial for families in more rural areas where there aren’t private schools. Still, he argued that being the target of attack ads boosts his outsider credentials and underscores his willingness to buck his party.

In addition to voting against the voucher plan, Barrett was one of seven GOP legislators who voted not to expel Democratic state Rep. Gloria Johnson of the so-called Tennessee Three from the state House in 2023 after she participated in a gun control protest on the chamber floor.

“I am not the choice of the political elite,” he said.

House Freedom Action, the political arm of the hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus, has stepped in to boost Barrett, spending $300,000 on the race. He’s also touted support from John Rich, of the country music duo Big & Rich, a friend from high school who is featured in ads from Citizens for a Conservative Tennessee, which has spent $61,000 on the race.

Van Epps, who serves in the Tennessee National Guard and until June was commissioner of the state’s Department of General Services, has emphasized his military credentials.

“I flew nine combat tours taking out terrorists,” he says in a campaign ad. “Now I’m on a new mission to help Trump save America.”

He’s benefited from spending by Jordan’s PAC, the American Liberty Foundation, which ran a supportive ad. He’s also drawn backing from Patriotic Fund, Inc., which supports Republican veterans running for office and has spent $170,000 on direct mail.

Reeves, who is in his first term representing a district in the Nashville exurbs, said he’s campaigned on being “the most effective” among the state legislators in the race. GOPAC Election Fund, which supports state legislators running for Congress, has sent mailers on his behalf.

“We need somebody to get up there and put their head down and work, and I’ve got a history of doing that,” he said, pointing to his support for Lee’s voucher program and the creation of a new state agency to work with the federal government to remove people illegally in the state. Reeves has said that, if elected, his first bill would be to support Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship, although similar legislation has already been filed in the House.

In their ads, Reeves and Bulso have both referenced the assassination attempt on Trump and the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Bulso, an attorney who joined the Tennessee legislature in 2023, has emphasized his legal background and touted his conservative credentials.

“We have a federal government that spends too much, that taxes too much and has artificially increased the cost of living for our families, making it very difficult, especially for young families, just to afford the basic staples of life,” he said at a recent candidate forum.

Reeves led all candidates in fundraising, according to pre-primary reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Through Sept. 17, he raised $569,000, which included a loan of $300,000. He had $82,000 on hand for the final stretch of the campaign.

Bulso was the biggest self-funder, loaning his campaign $494,000 out of a total haul of $550,000. He had $76,000 available as of Sept. 17. Van Epps raised $359,000 and had $109,000 on hand, while Barrett raised $242,000 and had $70,000 left in his campaign coffers on Sept. 17.

Other self-funders in the Republican primary include former Capitol aide Mason Foley, who at 28 is hoping to be the first Gen Z Republican elected to Congress, and Stewart Parks, who received a pardon from Trump this year after serving time in federal prison over his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Foley loaned his campaign $325,000, while Parks had nearly $300,000 in self-funding through Sept. 17, federal records show.

Democratic primary

Four Democrats are running to succeed Green, including state Reps. Aftyn Behn, Bo Mitchell and Vincent Dixie, as well as businessman Darden Copeland, who owns a public affairs firm.

From left, Democrats Aftyn Behn, Darden Copeland, Vincent Dixie and Bo Mitchell are running in the special election for Tennessee’s 7th District (Courtesy Aftyn for Congress/Facebook, Darden Copeland for Congress, Vincent Dixie for Tennessee, Bo Mitchell for US Congress/Facebook) Democrats are hoping to continue with their string of 2025 overperformances in special elections, which has included flipping state legislative seats in Iowa and Pennsylvania that Trump carried by double digits last year. To win in a district as red-leaning as Tennessee’s 7th, though, the Democratic nominee would need to run up their vote totals in Nashville and improve on the party’s performance last year in the district’s more rural areas.

“The special election nature of it allows us to really work around the gerrymandering in a productive way,” Behn said. “We’re seeing Democrats fired up.”

Copeland, a first-time candidate, is the fundraising leader in the Democratic race. He brought in $435,000 through Sept. 17, including a $100,000 personal loan, according to FEC filings. But he had only spent $43,000 and had $392,000 on hand for the final weeks of the race. Behn raised $149,000 and had $45,000 on hand as of Sept. 17. Mitchell raised $203,000 and had $94,000 available, while Dixie raised $138,000 and had $45,000 banked.

Copeland, who worked on the presidential campaigns of Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry, said he entered the race because he didn’t feel there was anyone else who could win or represent the area well.

He said Democrats had a “branding problem” both nationally and locally, and he’s been emphasizing his support for working-class voters as he holds town halls across the district.

“If you can explain that, ‘I’m going to be for the working class,’ and it’s a little bit less about D versus R, it’s more up versus down, then I’m getting a lot of sensible folks that are saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to vote Democrat for the first time in 20 years so I can pull the lever for you.’ So that’s how we win,” Copeland said in an interview.

Dixie, the only Black candidate in the Democratic field, pointed to his past role as caucus chair of the state House Democrats, for which he said he criss-crossed the state fundraising, rather than focusing solely on Middle Tennessee.

“I can build coalitions with people that are from diverse backgrounds,” he said. “And that’s what it’s going to take in order to win this election. It’s going to take somebody who understands that everyday people are struggling right now.”

Mitchell has served in the legislature since 2013, the longest of any candidate running.

Behn is leaning on her experience as an organizer, including with the progressive group Indivisible. She said she has experience turning out voters in both rural and urban areas.

“I have a base of people who I have been organizing with in the trenches as Tennessee has evolved, and they feel like I’m the best fighter. They’re going to show up to vote for me, not only that but help me get elected,” she said in an interview.

As the only woman in the race, she pointed to female voters casting their votes early at a higher rate than male voters as a potential sign of her support.

But more broadly, Behn said the special election represented a chance for Democrats to rethink the kind of candidates they run in the state as the party grapples with a demoralized base.

The party hasn’t won a statewide race in Tennessee since 2006, and just two Democrats have hit the 40% vote mark in statewide elections since then. The most recent was former Gov. Phil Bredesen, who ran a well-funded campaign against Republican Marsha Blackburn in 2018 but lost by 11 points with just 44% of the vote.

“There’s just this antiquated stigma that, like, we need moderate men to win,” Behn said. “If that was the case, Phil Bredesen would be our senator.”

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