Dr. Mary Headrick answers questions asked by moderator Cindy Sexton during a U.S. House District 3 forum hosted by The Chattanooga Women’s Leadership Institute and UTC at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Fine Arts Center’s Roland Hayes Auditorium on July 21, 2014.To defeat U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann in November, Democratic candidate Mary Headrick will need an army of support from the district’s center – and that’s what she hopes to get.
“I want you to get rid of the idea that this is a Republican district. I have analyzed the data,” she told the Hamilton County JFK Club on Monday.
Headrick said the district has its share of Republican and Democrat voters, but those aren’t the ones who decide elections, she said. Headrick is looking for the issue-driven independents to give her campaign extra fuel.
“About half [of district voters] are nonpartisan voters, they may go Democrat, they may go Republican, but if they stay home, the Republicans win.”
Her research shows about 27 percent of the district’s voters always vote Republican, and about 23 percent always vote Democrat, she said.