‘Ask yourself in this moment “is my voice more important?” And if you think it is, your campaign is more about you than your policy agenda,’ Aftyn Behn wrote
The Democratic nominee for the special election for Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District, Aftyn Behn, suggested white candidates should drop out of primary races if they were running against a member of a minority group—then defeated a black candidate in her own primary.
“I’m probably going to be trolled for this, but if you’re a white man running in a primary with a progressive POC, I challenge you to ask yourself in this moment ‘is my voice more important?’ And if you think it is, your campaign is more about you than your policy agenda,” Behn wrote in a since-deleted X post on June 6, 2020.
Behn ignored her advice a few years later. Rather than dropping out in the face of a black opponent, she went on to defeat him in the primary for the seventh district last month. Vincent Dixie, a state representative and the only black candidate in the primary race, came in last place in a tight four-way struggle—Behn beat him with a 1,500-vote margin. As part of his platform, Dixie aimed to expand health care coverage, increase the minimum wage, raise taxes on the wealthy, and strengthen unions.
During the primary campaign, Dixie pressed Behn at a Sept. 9 candidate forum on how she would ensure black constituents had a voice in Congress. Behn replied that she has “always followed the lead of black women” and said she was grateful for their organizing.
Dixie called out Behn for only mentioning black women. “I just want to make sure you understand that it’s more than black women in this world that you’ll be representing. There are also black men that need to be in that conversation,” he said.
Behn’s rhetoric is unlikely to resonate with the seventh district, which voted for President Donald Trump and Republican senator Marsha Blackburn by 22 points last year. Behn will face Republican Matt Van Epps—a former commissioner in Gov. Bill Lee’s (R.) administration—to replace the district’s Republican congressman, Mark Green, who resigned in July to take a job in the private sector.
Behn, a state representative, has a long history of pushing race-based messaging. The day before she posted about white candidates, Behn shared a post mocking liberals for ignoring black women who call for abolishing the police.
In other deleted posts, Behn wrote that she wanted Nashville’s police department to be dissolved, supported a teachers’ union call that defunding the police should be a condition for schools reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic, and advocated for anti-police violence.
“[G]ood morning, especially to the 54% of Americans that believe burning down a police station is justified,” she posted to X on June 3, 2020.
In 2019, Behn smeared her own state as “racist,” the Washington Free Beacon reported. The next year, she said, “I hate this city,” referring to Nashville.
Behn—dubbed the “AOC of Tennessee”—is backed by the Knoxville chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and former vice president Kamala Harris, who joined Behn on the campaign trail last week.
Neither Behn nor Dixie responded to requests for comment.
