The same week Donald Trump began his second term in office, Rachel Campbell started her first term leading the hapless Tennessee Democratic Party. Democrats claim just one federal elected official — longtime U.S. Rep. Steven Cohen of Memphis — and suffer a superminority in both chambers of the state legislature. Even local governments and school boards have faced sudden takeover attempts from the far right in recent years, giving Democrats an uphill battle at every level of government.
Ask Campbell, though, and every election is just another opportunity to gain ground. She spoke with the Scene while en route to Friday’s “Rally for Recognition” in Morristown, Tenn.
What are the big milestones for the TNDP since you took office six months ago?
The most exciting thing that we’ve done is reorganizing for the first time since the 1990s. All 95 of our county parties are organized and ready to roll. That should happen every two years, but it hasn’t happened in a generation. It means that we host a convention in every county, and a new chair, vice chair officers and executive committee [are] elected within the county. Now primaries can happen everywhere, candidates can run everywhere, the party is working everywhere. That was something I had committed to do, and with the help of my executive committee and county chairs everywhere, we were able to get it done.
Last week, Tennessee saw visits from national Democratic Party leaders, including U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar and Gov. Gavin Newsom
What have been your takeaways from talking to Democrats across the state? What are you hearing?
The party is in a place where we have an opportunity to do a bottom-up rebuild and reinvigorate what it means to be a Tennessee Democrat. What I’ve heard the most is, we have to get going. We don’t have time to sit around and hope that things turn around for us. There is a lot of energy to recruit candidates, build a bench and break the state supermajority in two, four or six years. Plus, Trump. He engages Democrats in a way that I don’t think any Republican has in a very long time. It just keeps happening with something new every day.
When you say “reinvigorate” and “rebuild,” what issues or messaging do Democrats need to leave behind to be successful? And what issues are you working toward?
Everybody wants this giant overhaul of a message — and we do need that — but we also need to understand that the majority of Tennesseans, if not all Tennesseans, care about the same things. A roof over their head. Health care that takes care of their body. The ability to, if they have children, put them through school. If they have debt, take care of their student debt so that they can lead productive lives.  We have to center our message around workers’ rights and people’s rights and stop being so careful about hurting people’s feelings. I’m wiggling around that a little, but  we have to get back to talking about what that means and what that looks like and stop pussy-footing around.  We have to have a bigger tent that accepts everybody, even if they don’t all believe the exact same thing. We still can all fit.  We’re gonna welcome everyone under our tent because, until we start winning again, we can’t govern again.  This state is not gonna get better if we keep electing Marsha Blackburns and Andy Ogles.Â
 What are the biggest issues coming out of this state legislative session?
The voucher scam.  We don’t even know where that money is going to go — into which private schools, which Christian schools.  Defunding public education lock, stock and barrel is going to come back to bite them, because everyone who has kids or grandkids wants to see their kids get a good public education.
With the special election coming up, what’s Democrats’ message on the federal level?
“Have you had enough yet?” That’s our message.  If you’ve had enough, so have we, and we are ready to welcome you under our tent.  My groceries are getting a lot more expensive. School supplies are more expensive.  Republican candidates’ entire goal is to get up to D.C. to see how much boot-licking of Donald Trump’s boots they can do.  There are Trump voters out there who cast their votes in good faith — I do not think that every Trump voter is a racist, raging lunatic —  thinking they were doing what’s best for their family, what’s best for their community. But we are not in that place anymore.  If you are looking for a change, come. We will take you in.
What lessons from Democrats’ 2024 loss are you taking into the next election?
We misread the general fatigue post-COVID, and we maybe misread crowd sizes as general-level support.  We screwed it up. We messed it up.  I was excited and exhilarated with Kamala Harris as a nominee,  and I’m determined that — in this next cycle and in the cycle past that if I’m still lucky enough to be chair — we know what to do with all that energy if we get it again. Right now, we need to build a bench at every level to flip school board seats, county commissions, city councils, county mayor, district attorney and dog catcher, all the places in which an elected official might actively do good work in their community, so that we can lift those people up to the next level of government.
