Republicans held onto a congressional seat in Tennessee on Tuesday, but by a much narrower margin than last year’s race.

Matt Van Epps, a Trump-endorsed Army veteran and former state commissioner, defeated Democratic State Representative Aftyn Behn in the state’s seventh congressional district, according to the Associated Press.

With more than 95 percent of the vote in as of publication, Van Epps was up by about 9 percentage points. But in 2024, then-Rep. Mark Green—who resigned earlier this year—handily carried the district by about 21 percent. The district also backed the president by approximately the same margin last November.

Democratic strategists told the Daily Beast that they were looking to cut Trump’s margin of victory last year in half. They’ve done that, and then some.

The

See Full Page