Democrat congressional candidate Aftyn Bhen — the party’s nominee in Tuesday’s pivotal special election in Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District — is under fire over inconsistencies in her professional resume, according to a new report.
“Funny thing happened when I was doing background research on potential congresswomen Aftyn Behn. I called a company she said she interned for…and they had never heard of her,” Daily Wire reporter Brecca Stoll revealed in an X post on Monday.
Stoll referenced a 2023 interview Behns at for with online publication Tennbeat, in which she claimed that “during her senior year at the University of Texas, she interned at the Arc of Texas, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of persons with disabilities.”
A spokesperson for the organization told the Daily Wire that they have no record of Behn ever interning there, however.
“After I confirmed both the spelling of ‘Aftyn Behn’ and that the company’s record system included interns, I knew my next question was not for the Arc of Texas but for Aftyn. However, Behn did not respond to a request for comment,” Stoll reported.
Behn is running in Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District in an effort to replace former Rep. Mark Green, a Republican who retired to pursue a job in the private sector earlier this year. While the district was carried by President Donald Trump by 22 points last November, and currently holds a partisan lean of R+10 on the Cook Partisan Voting Index, both parties have flooded the race with resources due to the current balance of the House.
Though Van Epps is still favored to win the race, a shocking poll from Emerson College found the Republican leading by just two percentage points.
A loss in the race would shrink the Republican Party to razor thin margins, prompting several party leaders, including President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), to campaign for Republican nominee Matt Van Epps. Democrats, on the other hand, are hoping to build on positive election showings in New Jersey and Virginia, as well as recent Republican underperformances in special elections, in order to pull off an upset.
Much of the district’s layout is rural, though it does include sections of West Nashville, a longtime Democratic Party stronghold.
Both the Republican National Committee and their (RNC) and their Democratic Party rivals have poured significant resources into the race ahead of Election Day.
Notable expenditures from the GOP side include over $1.3 million from billionaire Jeff Yass, more than $600,000 from the Ken Griffin-backed Conservatives for American Excellence, $453,000 from the School Freedom Fund, seven figures from Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC.
The DNC has poured resources into voter outreach, launching an “organizing blitz” in mid-November to mobilize voters in Nashville.
