Endorsements and Money Around Matt Van Epps: Green, Beaman, and TN-07

TruthWire News- October 6, 2025

Tennessee’s redrawn 7th Congressional District remains one of the state’s most reliably Republican seats. Its electorate is predominantly white and heavily evangelical Christian, and many voters say they approach politics through a conservative, faith-and-family lens. In a district like this, character doesn’t sit off to the side; it frames how endorsements, donors, and inner circles are interpreted at the ballot box. 

Within that context, two figures closely associated with Matt Van Epps—President-endorsed former congressman Mark Green and Nashville auto magnate Lee A. Beaman—provide a character backdrop voters may weigh alongside policy.

Mark Green’s personal rupture—and a post-divorce split in endorsements

More than a year after Mark Green’s marriage entered public legal proceedings amid reports of an extramarital relationship, Camie (Camilla) Green—now Green’s ex-wife—publicly endorsed Van Epps’s chief Republican rival, Rep. Jody Barrett. Green himself has aligned with Van Epps. As of last week, President Donald Trump endorsed Van Epps. Whatever one makes of the timing, some local Republicans read it as a signal of urgency from the Van Epps camp at a moment when private field reports and on-the-ground activity suggested Barrett had opened an early lead once the campaign period kicked into high gear in August. 

For a values-driven electorate, Green’s role as a validator—and his family’s very public divergence after the divorce—invites voters to consider what those associations say about judgment and steadiness.  

Lee Beaman’s divorce record and public controversies

Lee A. Beaman has long been a high-dollar Republican donor and civic presence in Nashville. His personal life, however, has been chronicled in public court records and extensive reporting tied to a contentious divorce with Kelley Speer Beaman. In 2018, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ordered the original trial judge off the case—not for deciding any allegation, but because the judge’s independent online look-ups about a leaked filing created an appearance of bias. The divorce later settled without a merits ruling. Separate coverage has noted Beaman’s multiple marriages (he is now on his fifth), reinforcing the extent to which his private life has been part of the public record in Middle Tennessee.

Extensive public record also reports Beaman suspended/quit his participation on several boards for Belmont University, Beacon Center of Tennessee, and Montgomery Bell Academy while he dealt with his legal issues. He returned to the board at Belmont in 2022.

For TN-07’s voters—many of whom say personal conduct and integrity are inseparable from public service—the Beaman history isn’t tabloid fodder; it is context for evaluating the kind of company a candidate chooses to keep.

Reported last-minute tactics raise fresh questions about campaign ethics

In statements provided to TruthWire, Republican candidates Joe Leurs and Stewart Parks allege the Van Epps operation (or actors aligned with it) made late calls to voters claiming Parks had suspended his campaign and endorsed Van Epps—claims they flatly deny. Parks says at least one other GOP campaign reported similar calls to their supporters. Leurs and Parks frame the reports as part of a broader pattern—eligibility challenges earlier in the race, a mid-race website redesign they call confusingly similar to a rival’s, and inconsistencies in how Van Epps characterizes his military role—all of which, they argue, speak to honesty and transparency. (These are the candidates’ allegations; the Van Epps campaign should address them directly. Two other Republican hopefuls—Lee Reeves and Stuart Cooper—did, in fact, suspend and back Van Epps following Trump’s endorsement.) 

Why it matters in TN-07

A district that is largely church-centered, and culturally conservative often scrutinizes not only a candidate’s platform but also his endorsers and financiers as a proxy for his own compass. Van Epps benefits from establishment support and interestingly timed presidential backing. He also stands closely alongside two men whose highly public personal histories are familiar to Middle Tennessee voters. For those who want to “clean things up” in politics, the question practically asks itself: what do these relationships say about Van Epps’s judgment and the standards he is willing to accept from the people nearest to his campaign? In TN-07, where many voters prize consistency between private conduct and public claims, the answer could prove decisive. 

What a Barrett win would signify

If Jody Barrett prevails, it would mark more than a single-race upset. It would solidify a grassroots current that has grown steadily more assertive in Tennessee over the past five years—from dark money mega PAC’s and entrenched establishment power mechanisms to small-dollar, door-to-door truly grassroots operations. Such an outcome would simultaneously confirm the dwindling relevance of the long-established Republican machine that has dominated the state’s political landscape for decades—an apparatus often criticized by newer, more populist voices for making little room for insurgents and instead, seeking to crush them. In short: a Barrett win would be read as a verdict on power as much as on policy, and as a message about who, exactly, the movement in TN-07 believes should define “conservative leadership” going forward.

Bottom line: In a district where conservative Christian identity is central to how many voters decide, the company a candidate keeps can matter as much as the platform he runs on. Whether that helps or hurts Matt Van Epps will be settled by an electorate that still expects its leaders to walk the talk.

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