(Nashville, TN) — U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), the rising star known for her fearless advocacy for justice for all and working families, kicked off a national Democratic Committee campaign Friday, Nov. 7th, backing state Rep. Aftyn Behn for Tennessee’s Congressional District 7. Early voting in the high-stakes race opens this Tuesday, Nov. 12th. Rep. Behn is challenging Republican Matt Van Epps for the seat vacated by Mark Green, also a Republican, who resigned earlier this year to take a private sector job. A special election will be held Dec. 2nd.
Congresswoman Crockett (D-Texas) had planned to campaign for Rep. Behn in person here in Nashville but reconsidered when notified that a vote in Congress was imminent to end the government shutdown. Instead, she made a virtual appearance at a town hall held inside South Nashville’s historic Watson Grove Baptist Church. She was beamed alongside Rep. Behn on TV screens stationed high above the pulpit of the church. The church, situated within Congressional District 7 and located at 1415 Deford Bailey Avenue, was selected by the Tennessee Democratic Party and was highly secured.
Rep. Behn took over the pulpit, while her image was projected on-screen alongside Crockett. Both she and Crockett condemned the government shutdown, cuts to SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), and the impending decline in healthcare affordability. Several residents of Congressional District 7 testified about how they are being affected. Behn’s supporters, members of the church and community, and media representatives packed the church.
Crockett told the audience that residents of the Congressional District 7th district deserve better than to be vacated by their former representative Green. “Talk to your friends, co-workers…family members and all those that don’t want to vote,” she urged. “Tell them, if Mississippi could somehow break the Supermajority…there is nothing that Tennessee can’t do.”
On the Tuesday prior to the town hall event (on Nov. 4th), Mississippi Democrats won two closely watched elections for state Senate, breaking the Republican supermajority in that state’s upper house and bringing more Black voices to Jackson, the state capital.
Rep. Behn, the candidate for Tennessee’s Congressional District 7, worked as a community organizer and social worker before she was elected to represent Nashville’s 51st District two years ago. She said she ran for state office so that she could have a “bigger megaphone…to call for ending the grocery tax,” working to support state Sen. Charlane Oliver (D-Nashville). “Everywhere I go I hear the same thing,” she told Town Hall participants, adding, they say Aftyn, “life just isn’t affordable anymore. I can’t afford to live.”
Sen. Oliver is now the political director of Behn’s campaign for Congress. Oliver bolstered enthusiasm for Behn, saying, “she’s a hard worker and she cares about people.” “I’ve been boots on the ground campaigning with Aftyn Behn for the past ten years,” said Oliver, recalling Behn’s arrest two years ago in support of the three Tennessee legislators expelled for involvement in a gun control protest on the House floor.
Sen. Oliver and U.S. Rep. Crockett each have family roots in Memphis. Oliver spearheaded the push to bring Crockett to Nashville to support Behn’s campaign. Crockett, who received an undergraduate degree from Rhodes College in Memphis in 2003, said her mother lives in the Bluff City. She acknowledged two of her friends in the audience at the church, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, professor, Vanderbilt University, and Odessa Kelly, who ran to represent the 7th Congressional District three years ago but lost in the general election. Crockett currently represents Texas’ 30th Congressional District, serving portions of Dallas and Tarrant Counties since 2023. She is a former civil rights attorney, public defender, and Texas State Representative.
