🚨 Time to Vote, Williamson County 🚨

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Williamson County neighbors:

Jared Sullivan here. It’s time to vote! Yet again! And this election is a biggie: it’s for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, aka Mark Green’s vacated U.S. House seat. Early voting runs from now through November 26, followed by the general election on December 2. 

The election is between Aftyn Behn, a Democrat currently serving in the Tennessee House, and Matt Van Epps, a Republican who served as Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services. The election could have national consequences, and a great gun-sense candidate, in Behn, could stage an upset — GOP turnout dropped by 80% in the primary for this race — so it’s important that you do your civic duty and hit the polls. 

You can vote early at the Election Commission office at 405 Downs Blvd., in Franklin. Beginning on November 19, you can also vote at the Franklin Rec Center or the Fairview Rec Center.

Here’s why you should, without question, vote for Aftyn Behn

This election can be boiled down to a simple question: do you want Congress to remain utterly supine and continue to let Donald Trump run roughshod over the law and continue to do all sorts of other despicable things, or do you want to stand up and say, “We, as Americans, are better than this nonsense.” 

I fall into the latter camp. And if you do too, Behn is your candidate. She wants to repeal Trump’s economy-slowing tariffs, fund rural hospitals, protect the ACA healthcare subsidies, and undo the damage caused by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. (I wrote about a Tennessee family affected by the bill for the Nashville Banner.) These are all very normie liberal policies that enjoy broad public support, which makes me think Behn might actually have a shot in this race, since the GOP has utterly failed to capitalize on the economic worries (i.e., inflation) that carried the party to office in 2024. Behn, much to her credit, also supports common-sense gun reforms. 

On the flip side, if you want Trump’s madness to continue unchecked, Van Epps is your guy. He has fully embraced the president’s agenda, and he wants to follow Mike Johnson’s lead and slow-walk the release of the Epstein files. Beyond that, he has made vague promises of lowering prices, without really specifying how he’d do it. His website also says he’ll partner with Trump to revive American manufacturing. Which is a bit problematic, since, under Trump, America has shed manufacturing jobs and the Biden-era factory boom has cooled. And, unsurprisingly, Van Epps is calling for no gun-law reforms, even though that guns are the #1 cause of death among Tennessee children. 

So, for the love of all things decent and respectable and right, please go vote. And forward this email to a friend who might need a reminder to vote.

One last thing: Join me at St. Paul’s tomorrow for a discussion on TVA

Pardon the dramatic turn in this email, but tomorrow, November 18, I’ll be speaking at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 510 W. Main St., about my book, VALLEY SO LOW, which won the 2025 Tennessee Book Award for nonfiction. The focus of the conversation will be on TVA, which is of immense importance to all Tennesseans. The event is free and open to the public. It begins at 6:30 PM. I hope you’ll consider attending. Details here.