Gloria Johnson Looks Past August in Long Primary Run-Up

Gloria Johnson
Photo: Hamilton Matthew Masters

Many Democrats still jump at the long shadows of Phil Bredesen and Karl Dean, party standard-bearers who lost their bids for U.S. Senate and the Tennessee governorship, respectively, in 2018. Gloria Johnson is not one of them.

With retiring elder statesmen, no discernible post-Trump bump and a meager fundraising outlook, the Tennessee Democratic Party has limped a path forward, often putting up rookie candidates with little support who take regular blows in even-year elections across the state. Nashville’s cracked congressional district — split into three gerrymandered districts in 2022 — and a swift political exit by incumbent U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper added insult to injury.

That is, until an impromptu protest against GOP inaction on gun control in the days following the 2023 Covenant School shooting put Johnson and fellow Democratic state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson under the national spotlight. The moment brought attention and money to the “Tennessee Three,” and Johnson — a Knoxville Democrat who has antagonized state Republicans over four terms in the Tennessee General Assembly — took the opening, declaring her candidacy for Republican Marsha Blackburn’s U.S. Senate seat in September of last year.

In the Democratic primary, Johnson still faces three other candidates, including Memphis candidate Marquita Bradshaw, who handily lost a longshot bid against Bill Hagerty for Tennessee’s other U.S. Senate seat four years ago. Even so, the campaign has been about Blackburn since Johnson’s campaign announcement. Bradshaw’s presence in the race has kept some prominent Black elected officials on the sidelines of the primary, according to Democratic insiders, but poses an outside threat to Johnson, who has accumulated money and favor ahead of primary day. Many Democrats wonder: Is it time to get our hopes up again?

Blackburn has earned stature among the national GOP as a safe-seat senator with a shameless habit of culture-war sound bites and no true scandals to her name. Her issues directly follow the Fox News cycle with special attention to anti-immigrant racism and transphobia. As a career politician with 20 years in D.C., she has the relationships and experience to quickly raise money — Blackburn has brought in more than $1 million per month in 2024 — and line up national endorsements. As an original Tea Party loyalist, Blackburn has the bona fides to satisfy Republicans’ cranky flank and avoid what might really scare her: a serious primary challenge from the right.

Johnson has capitalized on Democrats’ true moment of political energy to step out into hostile waters and test the party’s appeal in a post-Dobbs, post-Covenant Tennessee. In the weeks leading up to early voting, Johnson regularly hit three or four county campaign events a day, rallying voters against GOP extremism and the two big wedge issues favored by Tennessee Democrats this cycle: gun control and reproductive rights. Over the past two years, these two topics have anecdotally animated non-voters and swing voters in Tennessee, particularly suburban women. Democrats haven’t yet seen these issues translate to statewide votes for a properly funded and widely established candidate.

Blackburn has apparently taken notice, sending well-groomed young men to Johnson’s campaign events as “trackers.” Fundraising texts tease polls that show a race tighter than Bredesen’s 2018 loss, but still far from close.