Tennessee Republicans who are battling for the GOP nomination to replace former Rep. Mark Green all have the same platform: supporting President Donald Trump’s agenda. However, only one, Matt Van Epps, has the president’s endorsement, setting the stage for a temperature check on how much weight Trump’s backing carries.
The special election primaries to replace Green, who resigned in July, have drawn crowds from both parties as they seek to succeed the retired congressman. Republicans will likely hold on to the seat, which will help boost the House GOP’s razor-thin majority to barely give Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) some breathing room.
There were 11 Republican candidates in the race to replace Green, including a handful of state representatives. But Trump’s endorsement upended the race, prompting GOP state Rep. Lee Reeves and businessman Stuart Cooper to suspend their campaigns, urging their supporters to vote for Van Epps.
Trump spoke at a tele-rally for Van Epps on Monday night, hosted by Club for Growth PAC. He called Van Epps a “great first American champion” to Congress.
“You’re going to love this man,” the president said, praising Van Epps for his 10 years of service as an Army veteran and his work as the former commissioner of Tennessee’s Department of General Services.
“Matt will be a true champion for the people of the 7th District. He’ll vote for strong and secure borders. … Matt will support our campaign to restore law and order to our cities and towns,” Trump said. “You see that I’m doing that all over.”
The president also praised Van Epps’s support of school choice, a central issue in the state race that has been backed by the other Republican candidates.
“We have a good fighter on our hands for school choice, where I helped Texas get it in other places,” the president said. “And Matt’s going to help us, very importantly, defend our Second Amendment, protect religious liberty, and we will stop the radical Democrats in Congress from trying to destroy the progress we have.”
Van Epps still has nine other opponents to beat out for the primary, including two state lawmakers, Jody Barrett and Gino Bulso. Van Epps led with $358,700 in campaign fundraising through mid-September, followed by Barrett with $241,900. Bulso raised $56,000 and loaned about $490,000, with an additional $200,000 loan from himself coming in, per local outlet 12WBOY.
Outside groups are spending heavily on the race, as well, with most of the $2.5 million spent coming from the GOP side.
Around $1 million of that total has gone to opposing Barrett, an attorney whose vote against Gov. Bill Lee’s (R-TN) school voucher expansion drew ire from school choice groups. He has, however, praised Trump’s tax credit initiative. He is backed by the House Freedom Fund.
Though Van Epps has drawn endorsements from the president, Lee, Green, and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Tuesday could still be anyone’s race, Trump said.
“I think he’s going to have a tremendously successful run, which is now going to be coming to an end, in one sense, but in another sense, the fight will start because you can never assume anything; you have to go right up till Election Day,” Trump said on the Club for Growth call. “But tomorrow is a big day, really big day.”
Van Epps, who was also on the call, thanked the president and the PAC for endorsing him. He pledged to have Trump’s back “100%” and would help Trump take on the “woke radicals trying to destroy this country.”
“We cannot let the president down in this election,” Van Epps said. “Vote to defend America’s freedom, safety, and way of life. We must stand united with President Trump against the radical Left, who are determined to destroy all we hold dear.”
On the Democratic side, four candidates are vying for the nomination: state Reps. Vincent Dixie, Aftyn Behn, and Bo Mitchell, as well as businessman Darden Copeland. The candidates hope Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will be so unpopular that it will convince voters to flip the seat blue on Dec. 2, the day of the general election.
The special election to replace Green is the sixth to take place to fill vacancies in the 119th Congress. The first four victories are split between Republicans and Democrats evenly, with the GOP maintaining control of two districts in Florida and Democrats recently securing wins in Virginia and Arizona.
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The fifth special election takes place on Nov. 4 in Texas’s 18th Congressional District to replace the late Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner. That seat is expected to remain blue, and with a Democrat sworn in, it will narrow Johnson’s majority to just one seat.
But a Republican victory in the Dec. 2 election to replace Green will bump that majority back up to two seats, giving Johnson a small cushion on votes for contentious legislation heading into a midterm election year.
