The boundaries of state House District 52 are, like the rest of the districts in the county, confusing.
Most of the district is in the southeast part of Nashville, around Antioch. But it protrudes across the Cumberland River into East Nashville’s Lockeland Springs for a few blocks. From incumbent Rep. Mike Stewart’s home in that near-island part of the district, he can see its boundary.
For the first time since Stewart was elected to the House in 2008, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus is facing a primary challenger, and it comes from the more populous and more diverse Antioch area of his district.
James Turner
COVID-19 and protests over police brutality and racial injustice have thrown this summer’s campaign season into uncertainty. But some observers believe James Turner, a second-generation pastor at Edgehill’s New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, has a chance of at least giving the incumbent lawmaker a run for his money in the Aug. 6 Democratic primary.
Turner, mostly indirectly, seeks to contrast himself from the incumbent by arguing that he has been fighting for civil rights and social justice “in between tragedies.”
“You see it even more now that the city and the state and the world is looking for change, is looking for social justice, looking to continue to fight against injustice, against racism and against hate,” says Turner, who lives in Antioch and is a past president of the influential Interdenominational Ministers Fellowship. “I have dedicated my life to that, been consistent in that and been engaged in that. When I look at my district, I saw a void.”
In recent weeks, Turner has landed endorsements from two of the city’s Black countywide elected officials — Metro Councilmember Zulfat Suara and Juvenile Court Clerk Lonnell Matthews. His campaign manager is Kara Turrentine, a veteran of local campaigns.
“The district deserves better,” Turner says. “I think I deserve better. When I was fighting for social justice, standing with state legislators in the Capitol, I did not see who represented my district there. … I’ve worked with city officials, I’ve worked with state legislators on social justice issues, stood with them, press conference after press conference, stood with them on so many social justice issues. I did not see the one who represents me. I did not see that come from my own legislator.”
Mike Stewart
At the Capitol, Stewart is one of the most visible Democrats. As the caucus chairman, he often speaks in committee hearings and on the House floor in opposition to Republican bills. He holds frequent press conferences decrying the latest GOP outrage. He was among the first to call for former Speaker Glen Casada to step down. And in recent weeks, he has been a frequent presence at the ongoing protests against racial injustice outside the Capitol.
“My mission is to push back on Trump and push back on the Republicans,” Stewart says. “I do that whether I have a primary challenge or not.”
And, he says, his four years of service as caucus chair have had a wider impact than just District 52, as Democrats have picked up formerly Republican seats in the state’s largest counties (while losing some seats elsewhere). The statewide political work can be complicated by a frayed relationship with state party chair Mary Mancini, whom the House Democratic Caucus unsuccessfully sought to ouster last year. But this year, in addition to the Democratic strongholds in Nashville and Memphis, the party has its eyes on a couple of House seats in Rutherford and Knox counties.
In the Democratic Party, hand-wringing about the efficacy of primary challenges is a favorite pastime — especially in the wake of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 win in New York. Tennessee Democrats are not immune, and this election season also features Keeda Haynes, a young Black attorney challenging longtime moderate Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper (read more on that race on p. 8). One side of the debate argues that challenging sitting Democrats diverts resources from flippable seats held by Republicans; the other argues you can walk and chew gum at the same time. And while Stewart hasn’t faced a primary challenge since he won the seat more than a decade ago, other members of the delegation frequently do — including District 58’s Harold Love, one of the Nashville House delegation’s two Black members, who himself won his seat by beating an incumbent in the primary. (Love, who preceded Turner as president of the Interdenominational Ministers Fellowship, declined to comment on the District 52 race.)
“For some priorities like [Medicaid] expansion, we have to win more seats,” Stewart says. “The fact is, the Republicans are against expansion, and so to accomplish that task you can’t just be skillful politically, you have to get more seats. I have been systematically working with Democrats to win seats, and we have been successful, but we have to do more.”
