No easy targets for Democrats
The rightward drift of the state Republican Party has encouraged the Hamilton County Democratic Party to field a candidate to oppose each Republican member of the county legislative delegation for the first time since 2018.
At this point, we don’t see a single Republican Democrats can pick off since county legislative Republicans aren’t as far right as some of their colleagues.
Complicating things are that two of the Republicans, state Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, and state Rep. Patsy Hazlewood, R-Signal Mountain, will have primary opponents for the first time as incumbents.
In any case, with Thursday’s qualifying deadline, the field for both parties is set for the Aug. 1 state primary. Democrats in state Senate District 10 (Missy Crutchfield), House District 26 (Allison Gorman), House District 27 (Kathy Lennon), House District 29 (Ryan Scofield) and House District 30 (Heather McClendon) will have no opposition.