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The Democratic Party hopeful in Tennessee’s upcoming special election, Aftyn Behn, is going viral due to a 2019 incident when she was working as a political organizer and was forcibly removed from Democrat Gov. Bill Lee’s office during an attempted sit-in.
The 2019 incident came before Behn entered elected office in 2023 by winning a special election to take over the state’s District 51 seat. Prior to her entrance into the Tennessee state legislature, Behn worked as a political organizer for numerous far-left activist groups, such as “No Kings” protests co-organizer Indivisible, Enough Is Enough Tennessee and the Tennessee Justice Center.
During her work with Enough Is Enough, which the conservative Capital Research Center says was established to target Tennessee lawmakers accused of sexual misconduct, Behn participated in a sit-in in Lee’s office, which resulted in a video recording of her skating past officers to get inside before they ran after her and yanked her out of the office.
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The sit-in was aimed at pressuring the governor to demand the resignation of a state representative who had been accused of, but not charged with, sexual assault allegations, according to News Channel 5 Nashville.
Behn appears to be heard wailing in the video as she gets yanked out of the governor’s office after reportedly being told she could face arrest. A subsequent social media post by local news outlet The Tennessee Holler showed Behn on day two of the attempted sit-in, lying with a blanket and pillow in front of the governor’s office weeping.
“HAPPENING NOW: Aftyn Behn Of Enough Is Enough Tennessee weeps after being roughly tossed out of Governor Bill Lee’s office by troopers,” the post says.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Behn campaign for comment on the viral video but did not receive a response.
Republican National Committee spokesperson Delanie Bomar pointed out that Behn “is the same woman who says she hates Nashville and wants to burn down police stations,” arguing she is “wildly unfit for office, and this video is further proof of that.”
With the Tuesday special election for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District looming, Behn has been the brunt of numerous attacks for her radical past.
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One of those attacks stemmed from past comments Behn made on a podcast, claiming she “hated” the city she is trying to represent, Nashville.
Others include radical calls to “dissolve” police departments and previous justification for violent riots and burning down police stations.
When pressed over the weekend about her anti-police positions in the past, Behn dodged the question three different times. She claimed the attacks on her comments about hating Nashville were “obviously taken out of context” and are just part of an attack campaign against her because Republicans are scared.
“I do not hate country music. I was conceived after a George Strait concert,” Behn quipped during an interview on the “Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar” podcast.
“It just shows — The New York Times reporter — that there’s a 48-page dossier of me, which includes clips,” she said. “I had a podcast back in the day called G.R.I.T.S. – Girls Raised In The South – and I was lamenting about, you know, the things that are wrong with our city. Obviously taken out of context, obviously hyperbolic, and I don’t feel that way at all.”
Behn added that she thinks the attack ultimately backfired, and shows her opponent is “digging deep.”
During the “Breaking Points” interview, Behn tried to dispel the criticism that she hates the district she is trying to represent by arguing that she has spent “the past decade” of her life “pouring blood, sweat and tears into my city and my state to make it better for working people.”
However, that working-class campaign message also has been challenged by Behn’s past ahead of the special election.
The state representative, for example, voted no in 2024 on a bill that would have resulted in a $400 million tax cut for certain Tennessee small businesses, including potential refunds of up to $1.5 billion.
Among her other anti-tax cutting actions, Behn rallied against Republicans’ H.R. 1, the so-called “big, beautiful bill.” The bill, which extended President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, could have meant a nearly $4,000 increase for taxpayers in her district if it had not passed based on economic analyses.
Lee called the move the “single largest tax cut” in the state’s history.
Behn also voted against a statewide budget bill earlier in 2025 that would have added tens of millions to the state’s rainy day fund, which would have effectively padded the state’s coffers so that, in times of low revenue, taxes won’t need to be increased so much.
That same budget bill would have also allocated millions for volunteer fire departments, senior centers, emergency medical services, teacher bonuses and other public safety funding.
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