WASHINGTON — Voters in Tennessee’s 7th District will elect a new House representative on Tuesday evening, and the race is shaping up to be much closer than initially expected — leaving Republicans in a scramble to keep a seat crucial to their slim majority.

The special election will fill the seat vacated by former Rep. Mark Green, who retired earlier this year. Green won the seat with nearly 60% of the vote, and President Donald Trump won by roughly 22 percentage points in the 2024 election.

But polling shows the Republican and Democratic candidates in a statistical tie, prompting GOP leaders to go into overdrive to save what should be considered a safe Republican seat.

“Special elections are strange animals, and anything can happen,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said on Tuesday.

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