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President Donald Trump told Tennessee Republicans to "get out and vote" and "show the world something" the day before Tuesday's special congressional election for a hotly contested GOP-controlled vacant House seat in a solidly red congressional district.
Trump's campaign pitch, the first of two on Election Eve, came as House Speaker Mike Johnson was spending all day at a slew of campaign stops with Republican nominee Matt Van Epps, who is facing off against Democratic nominee Aftyn Behn in the race to represent Tennessee's 7th Congressional District to succeed former GOP Rep. Mark Green, who resigned from office in June to take a private sector job.
"We're going to win this seat, but we cannot take anything for granted," Johnson said in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital ahead of a rally with Van Epps in Franklin, Tennessee, just south of Nashville.
Trump carried the district — which is located in central and western Tennessee, stretches from Kentucky to Alabama, and includes parts of Nashville — by 22 points in last year's presidential election.
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But Democrats, energized following the party's sweeping victories last month in high-profile ballot box showdowns from coast to coast, are spending big bucks in a race that's seen as a key barometer ahead of next year's midterm elections, when the GOP will be defending its congressional majorities.
Republicans, working to protect the GOP's current razor-thin 219-213 majority in the House and aiming to avoid a major upset in the high-stakes showdown, have been showering Van Epps with resources and support in the final stretch of the campaign.
"Special elections are strange because a lot of people take for granted in a deep red district like this that the Republican is just going to win automatically. Nothing's automatic. So we're here to help turn out the vote and make sure we get this great candidate right over that line," Johnson said. "We take no vote for granted. We need everybody to turn out."
Van Epps, a military combat veteran and former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services who is backed by Trump, predicted that "we're going to win decisively tomorrow."
"We have over 50 local endorsements as well. We have a whole day of events today with incredible backing, and we're going to get this done tomorrow," he emphasized in the Fox News Digital interview.
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Minutes later, as Johnson spoke to a crowd of a couple of hundred GOP activists and supporters, the speaker called Trump on his cell phone.
"Let's make it a sweeping victory," Trump said. "The whole world is watching Tennessee right now. And they're watching your district. The whole world. It’s a big vote. It’s going to show something. It's got to show that the Republican Party is stronger than it's ever been."
In a sign of the importance of holding the seat, Republican Gov. Bill Lee, GOP Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, as well as Republican members of Congress from Tennessee and state GOP lawmakers all spoke ahead of Johnson at the rally.
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Behn, a state representative, former healthcare community organizer and a rising progressive star who some have dubbed the "AOC of Tennessee," is also getting a helping hand on Election Eve from top Democrats.
Progressive champion Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, will headline a virtual rally for Behn on Monday evening.
Ocasio-Cortez will be joined by Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, who chaired the Congressional Progressive Caucus the past four years, Black Voters Matter Fund co-founder LaTosha Brown and former Vice President Al Gore, a Tennessee native.
Democrats were laser focused on spotlighting the issue of affordability in this autumn's elections, and Behn is keeping to that script.
"Angry about high grocery prices? Worried about health care costs? Feeling burned by tariffs? Then Dec. 2 is your day to shake up Washington," she says in her campaign's final ad.
By casting herself as the candidate who will put a check on Trump's party in Congress, Behn sees a path to victory.
While Democrats privately acknowledge that the path to victory is narrow, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin, who campaigned with Behn last month, argued that she has "an excellent shot to win."
But Behn has faced repeated attacks that she's out of step with voters in the district.
"She does not represent the values of Tennessee or of America. She is as far left as you can get. She's a radical," Van Epps claimed in his Fox News Digital interview. "We have to reject that ideology. And we're going to do that tomorrow."
Johnson, speaking to the crowd minutes later at the Franklin rally, argued that Behn was a "radical" and "a dangerous far leftist. And she will be a rubber stamp for Akeem Jeffries and AOC and all the radicals in Congress."
And Trump, repeating comments he made over the weekend on social media, charged that Behn "hates Christianity" and "hates country music."
"How the hell can you elect a person like that?" the president asked.
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Trump was referring to past comments Behn made from a 2020 podcast.
"I hate the city, I hate the bachelorettes, I hate the pedal taverns, I hate country music, I hate all of the things that make Nashville apparently an 'it' city to the rest of the country. But I hate it," she said in the podcast.
The district is solidly red, but includes parts of the Democratic stronghold of Nashville, Tennessee's capital and its most populous city, and a major national center for the country music industry. The district encompasses parts of north and west Nashville, including the downtown area which has long been a very popular tourist destination.
Behn, in a CNN interview on Sunday, noted that she was a "private citizen" when she made the comments. "Nashville is my home. Do I roll my eyes at the bachelorette parties and the pedal taverns that are blocking my access to my house? Yeah. Every Nashvillian does. But this race has always been about something bigger. It's about families across middle Tennessee that are getting crushed by rising prices."
Republicans are also taking aim at Behn over an op-ed titled, "Tennessee is a racist state, and so is its legislature," that appeared in a 2019 edition of The Tennessean newspaper.
The Republican National Committee, pointing in a recent social media post to the six-year-old opinion piece, asked, "If Behn hates Tennessee so much, why is she trying to represent it?"
Also resurfacing in recent weeks are anti-police comments Behn made on a now-deleted social media account.
Behn campaign manager Kate Briefs, pushing back, said last week,"The attacks from Washington Republicans are getting louder because their agenda is deeply unpopular — and because early vote returns show this race is a dead heat. They can’t talk about fixing healthcare, lowering costs, or protecting our hospitals because they have no plan. So instead, they’re throwing mud."
Behn's campaign is pointing to what it says is "a surge of first-time and infrequent voters" turning out for early voting.
Should Behn pull off an upset and win, the GOP House majority would become so fragile the Democrats could have a shot of taking back the chamber next year ahead of the midterms if one or two more Republicans leave Congress early. Republicans were rattled last month when MAGA rock star and top Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announced she would step down in January following a falling out with the president.
"Since I became speaker, I presided over some of the smallest majorities in history. Every seat counts," Johnson told Fox News Digital.
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