For only the second time in the last 15 years, an incumbent Republican member of the Hamilton County state legislative delegation will have a serious primary opponent. In fact, two of them will.
Call it creeping Trumpism.
With Donald Trump firmly in control of the national Republican Party, and the continuing slide to the right of the Tennessee legislature, Republicans like state Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, and state Rep. Patsy Hazlewood, R-Signal Mountain, apparently have been judged not conservative enough.
The Republican Party of Ronald Reagan, Lamar Alexander and Bill Haslam, with which Gardenhire and Hazlewood associated, obviously is no longer acceptable.
Between 2009 and 2024, the only Republican primary opponents of incumbents were then-Collegedale Commissioner Ethan White, who took on state Rep. Mike Carter in District 29 in 2016, and perennial candidate Basil Marceaux Sr., who faced incumbent state Rep. Richard Floyd in Hazlewood’s District 27 in 2012. Floyd won with more than 90.3% of the vote, while Carter earned more than 83.3%.