Dec. 4 (UPI) — Rep. Matt Van Epps, R-Tenn., was sworn in by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on the House floor Thursday morning after winning a special election on Tuesday.
Van Epps’ rapid swearing-in drew criticism from House Democrats after Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., had to wait 50 days to be sworn in after winning a special election to replace a seat formerly held by her father.
“I was led to believe that waiting almost two months was customary and totally normal,” Robbie Sherwood, communications director for the Democratic Caucus in Arizona’s House of Representatives, said in a social media post, as reported by The Hill.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee simply posted: “Remember when he made Adelita Grijalva wait 50 days?”
Grijalva won the special election for her father’s seat on Sept. 23, but the House had gone into recess days earlier and remained recessed until the Senate approved a continuing resolution to reopen the federal government after a record 43-day shutdown started on Oct. 1.
Johnson had said he would swear in Grijalva when the House reconvened, which forced her to wait 50 days, but she was not absent from any House activities.
Van Epps is an Army veteran and a former Tennessee Department of General Services commissioner and replaces Mike Green, a Republican who retired from Congress in July to enter the private sector.
With 99% of votes counted, Van Epps mustered 96,988 votes for 53.9% of the 179,899 cast in Tuesday’s special election.
Democratic Party candidate Aftyn Behn, a member of the state House of Representatives, received 81,044 for 45% of ballots cast, while Independent Jon Thorp received 932 votes, and four independent candidates received a combined total of 1,867 votes, led by Jon Thorp’s 932.
Another 1,800 votes were not counted as of Thursday morning.
Epps’ 9-point win over Behn is significantly lower than Trump’s 22% win total in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District in the 2024 election, but it was enough to declare him the winner shortly after polls closed on Tuesday night.
Van Epps had received President Donald Trump’s endorsement ahead of the election.
His win gives Republicans a seven-seat majority in the House of Representatives with 220 seats to the Democratic Party’s 213, with two vacancies remaining to be filled.
The GOP’s majority will shrink by one after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who last month announced she will retire from the “political industrial complex” as of Jan. 5.