She’s not going to give U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann the benefit of the doubt that he is guaranteed to win, said Democrat Anna Golladay, 52, who announced on Saturday she will challenge the Ooltewah Republican for his seat in the 2026 election.
“I think there’s a perspective that this seat, because he’s held it for so many terms, belongs to Chuck Fleischmann, and it absolutely does not belong to him,” Golladay said by phone. “It belongs to us, the members and residents of District 3.”
For 15 years, Fleischmann has represented the congressional district, which encompasses the Chattanooga and Oak Ridge areas, including all of Hamilton County and counties like Bradley, Polk, McMinn, Roane, Scott and Anderson that border Georgia and North Carolina.
In 2010, Golladay moved to Chattanooga to take a job at Top Flight. She and her husband Mike live in Park Central with their dog and three cats. Her husband works as a veterinarian.
Golladay ran and lost a Chattanooga City Council race in 2024, owns a small business that does wholesale apparel printing and in 2018 was fired as a pastor from St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in North Shore for officiating a same-sex marriage.
She continues to advocate for members of the LGBTQ+ community through her work with the Hamilton County Democratic Party and her membership in the Reconciling Ministries Network.
(READ MORE: Firing of Chattanooga pastor draws locals into United Methodist fight over sexuality)
Golladay lost the 2024 City Council race in a runoff against Marvene Noel, 507 to 251, according to news coverage.
(READ MORE: Marvene Noel wins runoff for District 8 Chattanooga City Council seat)
While running for City Council, Golladay said she heard stories she couldn’t unhear about affordability and health care that prompted her to consider how she could use her leadership skills to address some of these things.
“And that landed me in really understanding that, I contend, that our current representative is more absent than he is present and is someone who shows up when corporate dollars and big donors need him but is not accessible when us everyday Tennesseans do,” Golladay said. “And it both angered me and fueled me in a way that I decided to go for it and challenge Fleischmann.”
The main values of Golladay’s campaign, she said, are dignity around work and a living wage. She wants Tennesseans to feel stable, not in survival mode.
Golladay said she is not soliciting political action committee money, and if offered, she would critically consider it.
“My challenger doesn’t feel that way, and that’s his purview,” Golladay said. “But for me, grassroots fundraising, individual fundraising, is always going to trump any kind of corporate tax money that comes.”
Growing up, Golladay said she was raised in a conservative household that was engaged with church and community work. When she was 18, she said the language she heard Democrats Bill Clinton and Al Gore use was the language she had grown up hearing Jesus use. She felt a pull and identity with the Democratic party to care for one another and put humans first.
(READ MORE: years after Stonewall uprising, Chattanooga businesses, mayor embrace gay pride day)
In 2024, Democratic challenger Jack Allen got 103,000 votes to Fleischmann’s 236,500, according to the Tennessee Secretary of State. Since 2018, the district has been at least 18 percentage points more Republican than the national average, according to the Cook Partisan Voter Index.
As a Democrat, Golladay said she wouldn’t be running if she didn’t think she had the skills and fortitude to win.
“Tennessee families keep falling farther behind when it comes to wages. Our health care costs have accelerated in historical ways. Our rural hospitals have closed. Our schools are struggling. Our rivers and our land are treated like corporate dumping grounds, and folks like Chuck continue to just ask us to be patient, to just continue to tell us that the help is coming, and that’s just simply not the case, those results are not panning out,” Golladay said. “And so as self-effaced as I am about the historical numbers for this district, I wouldn’t be doing this work if I didn’t think that I was the right candidate to do it.”
To kick off the campaign, Golladay is hosting an announcement event on Sunday at three locations across the congressional district:
— 1 p.m. at Roane State Community College in Oak Ridge, 701 Briarcliff Ave.
— 3 p.m. at The Press in Cleveland, 168 First St.
— 5 p.m. at Wanderlinger Brewing Co. in Chattanooga, 1208 King St.
Contact politics reporter Ruby Rayner at rrayner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6556.