While Tennessee Democratic Party Chair Rachel Campbell was trying to rally her troops for a mid-state congressional upset in a special U.S. House election Tuesday, the Hamilton County Democratic Party, which she previously chaired, was falling apart.
Since April’s party election, following Campbell’s ascension to the state body, the county party’s chair, vice chair, treasurer, secretary and several executive committee members all have resigned. Tammy Barnes, a defeated 2024 county school board candidate and the only remaining member of the leadership panel, will serve as interim chair.
Campbell chalked up the resignations to the nature of the “really, really tough work” and the likelihood that the resigned members “just don’t have the time in their own lives to be able to put the commitment into it.”
The disarray of the local party certainly is the opposite of the image Democrats in a red state want to offer as the country approaches a midterm election year in which Republican President Donald Trump has dropped in popularity and the U.S. Senate and U.S. House have only slight Republican majorities.
Indeed, Campbell and other Democrats had been touting how energized the party was in the run-up to Tuesday’s special election.