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An array of Democrats are picking up petitions to run for Congress across the state after Tennessee’s districts were unexpectedly redrawn last week, sending the minority party into a scramble.
Largely, Democrats are hoping to thwart the new map, or at least delay it until after November’s midterm election, through a series of lawsuits filed in recent days by the NAACP, ACLU and Tennessee Democratic Party.
As the new map waits in legal limbo, candidates now have until noon Friday to qualify for the newly-drawn districts, which split Memphis into three districts to take away the Democrats’ only seat of nine that represent Tennessee in the U.S. House. The original qualifying deadline was March 10, and candidates who had qualified by that date have the option to continue running in the district they originally qualified for or to switch districts.
State Rep. Justin J. Pearson, D-Memphis, who has been in a heated primary challenge against Congressman Steve Cohen of Memphis since before the redistricting, criticized members of his party during a rally reaffirming his candidacy Tuesday, days after Cohen said he would not run in the newly drawn district if the court challenge fails.
“What they want is us to keep fighting each other in this moment of unity,” Pearson said. “They want Democrats to start jumping in the race against each other, so you start wasting your resources on each other instead of paying attention to who’s really doing this stuff.”
Still, Pearson has amassed new challenges in his district, including state Sen. London Lamar, D-Memphis. Meanwhile, several Nashville candidates, including state Rep. Vincent Dixie, D-Nashville; former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry; Metro Council member Jacob Kupin; and businessman Darden Copeland, are testing the waters in Middle Tennessee districts, where they believe the new gerrymandered districts may give them an opening.
NASHVILLE-AREA CANDIDATES
Among the first new candidates was Dixie, who ran in the District 7 special election last year but lost in the primary. Dixie picked up a petition to run again this spring but ultimately decided not to file before the original deadline.
At the time, Dixie told the Banner that he and his wife wanted a break from campaigning. After a week of tense and racially centered debates at the General Assembly last week, Dixie says his wife was the first one to encourage him to reenter the race.
“The climate changed. This is an attack on Black voters and democracy itself,” Dixie told the Banner on Tuesday, noting that he had not officially announced his campaign but was “all in” to run again in the 7th District, which would change under the new map but still would include parts of Davidson and Montgomery counties, which make it a target for Democrats.
Dixie lost to state Rep. Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville) in the 2025 Democratic primary. Behn, who has not picked up a petition to run and was not available for comment Tuesday, lost to now-Congressman Matt Van Epps, a Nashville Republican who is seeking reelection in the district.
Unlike last time, Dixie said there is a political tide shifting in the state and Democrats need to take advantage of that movement in order to get out from under the Republican supermajority that thrust the new districts upon candidates and voters at the last minute.
Particularly, Dixie says, it’s up to Black leaders to run with the support of white Democrats.
“We can do this. Black leaders, such as myself, were built for a time like this,” Dixie said. “Now, I just need our allies to get behind us and join the fight with us.”
Another candidate who ran in the special election but lost to Behn was Copeland, a corporate lobbyist and business owner in Nashville. Copeland says that he’s the most likely to win outside of Davidson and Montgomery, and therefore the best Democrat to run in the 7th.
“I still have the same belief I had nine months ago, and that is that I can win in every corner of this district,” Copeland told the Banner late Tuesday, noting that he is also committed to running regardless of the redistricting lawsuits.
Copeland, who was a first-time candidate last year but gained name recognition during the short special election campaign, said he would fare better than his opponents because he can work with anyone and would campaign on the idea of un-gerrymandered redistricting in 2030, to create a more representative state.
“I think I won’t make the mistake this time of not spending as much time in Davidson County, you know?” Copeland said, noting that he out-fundraised the other Democrats and performed well in the district’s less urban counties. “I think I’ll be formidable.”
Kupin, who represents downtown and Germantown on Nashville’s Metro Council, is another of several potential candidates navigating the slapdash qualifying period. He pulled a petition Tuesday to qualify to run as a Democrat in the 7th District.
“Things have been changing by the hour with who’s in and who’s out and who was in and is now out, and who was out and is now in,” Kupin told the Banner. “I’ve shared with a number of members in the Democratic Party that I’m here to help and here to support, whether that’s being a candidate or supporting a candidate.
“Normally, there’d be some more time to talk and think and have conversations, but with a seven-day window, (there’s) not much time to maneuver,” he continued. “So I pulled my petition, and (I’ll) think about it these next couple days, talk to folks that are getting in the race, and I’ll make a decision before noon on Friday.”
Copeland never used Kupin’s name but rebuffed the idea of his candidacy, calling him “untested” outside of the city, which only makes up a sliver of the 7th District.
“I don’t think that being the councilman for downtown Nashville is a badge of honor outside of Nashville,” Copeland said.
Other Middle Tennessee districts that shifted due to redistricting have also drawn new candidates, most notably the 6th, where Barry, the former mayor of Nashville, is scouting a candidacy.
Barry, who ran against former U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Clarksville, in the 7th Congressional District in 2024, pulled a petition Tuesday to run in the 6th District, later telling the Banner she was undecided and hopeful that the districts wouldn’t change before this year’s elections.
“After Republicans shamelessly changed the rules in the middle of an election year, we owe it to ourselves as Democrats to fight back. I pulled a petition, and I’m taking a serious look at the newly drawn (6th) District,” Barry wrote late Tuesday. “My hope is that the courts will call a halt to this madness, but in the interim, we need to be prepared to fight on every front for the future of our state and our country.”
Metro Council member Mike Cortese, who was running in the District 5 Democratic primary, now plans to run in District 4, where he lives. Other Democrats jumping into the fray include Saletta Holloway in the 7th and Miriam Leibowitz in the 6th.
THE NEW NINTH
In Memphis, where Cohen has one foot out the door, vowing not to run in the redrawn 9th District, his former intern, Lamar, the state senator, is planning to take his spot.
“It’s important that we meet the moment that we’re in right now,” Lamar, the youngest woman and the youngest Black person to ever be elected to the state Senate, told the Banner on Tuesday. “And when I think about everything I’ve been able to accomplish throughout being an effective legislator in the supermajority Republican legislature, I think that that is the type of leadership and track record we need to take on this new fight.”
Lamar said she would not run against Cohen if the districts returned to their current state and he decided to continue his candidacy. She did say she spoke to Pearson and urged him to run in the newly drawn 5th District, where he now lives. The new 5th is the most noticeably gerrymandered district in the state, reaching from Maury and Williamson counties all the way to the Arkansas border, an apparent effort to boost the prospects of Rep. Andy Ogles, the Republican Congressman who was seen as the most easily targeted Republican in the state under the original districts.
“I did my part as a good Democrat, and he’s gonna make whatever decision he wants to make,” Lamar said of Pearson. “But I’m gonna do what I gotta do, because I offer something different.”
During his rally, Pearson did not name any specific candidates but seemed to position himself as the most revolutionary candidate in a field of “status quo” opponents, denouncing lawmakers who work within the supermajority system.
“It isn’t about committees (or) weak bills that people have passed because, y’all, whatever committees they were on didn’t stop this from happening, whatever friendships they said they were building, didn’t stop one of the most significant acts of political violence from happening in the 21st century,” Pearson said of the redistricting. “In three days, they took away the only Black-majority district in the state of Tennessee, leading the Neo Confederacy in their actions to take away and dilute Black political power. It’s time to stop trying to play old games.”
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This article first appeared on Nashville Banner and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.