Get ready for a lot more texts this summer. Candidates — new, old, Democrat, Republican — have moved swiftly ahead of a new May 15 registration deadline set by last week’s special session on redistricting that drew out Memphis’ longtime congressional seat. Spreading around the roughly 1 million people in the Memphis area has affected district boundaries across the state, shifting the terrain for Tennessee's politicos.
As of May 12, former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry is the latest familiar name on the Tennessee secretary of state’s list of prospective congressional candidates, published daily, who have pursued preliminary paperwork. Barry lost a 2024 race against former U.S. Rep. Mark Green in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, which included parts of Nashville and Clarksville. Now she is eyeing the neighboring 6th District, left open by incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. John Rose, who is running for governor. She took the mayor’s office with an outsider victory in 2015 before resigning in 2018 amid threat of an indictment for a sexual relationship with a member of her security detail.
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“After Republicans shamelessly changed the rules in the middle of an election year, we owe it to ourselves as Democrats to fight back," Barry tells the Scene in a statement. "I pulled a petition and I’m taking a serious look at the newly drawn sixth district. My hope is that the courts will call a halt to this madness, but in the interim, we need to be prepared to fight on every front for the future of our state and our country.”
Republicans in the newly redrawn 9th Congressional District — currently represented by incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, who has challenged the maps in court — moved quickly to pull papers and submit qualifying petitions, possibly benefiting from an early look at the maps pushed by their party during last week’s special session. State Sen. Brent Taylor (R-Memphis), a funeral director who represents East Memphis and Germantown, will campaign against state Rep. Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill) from opposite ends of the district for the GOP nomination.
In a rousing press conference Tuesday morning, state Rep. Justin Pearson (R-Memphis) confirmed that his campaign will continue despite the expansive new territory and new opponents. State Sen. London Lamar also pulled registration paperwork as of Wednesday. Cohen, like Pearson, is still technically a qualified candidate in the district, which he has represented since 2007 — though he is less likely to continue his reelection bid should the current redrawn borders survive ongoing court challenges.
State Rep. Vincent Dixie (D-Nashville) and political consultant Darden Copeland, also a Democrat, have moved toward candidacy just seven months after competing in an Oct. 7 special election primary for Green’s vacated 7th District seat, now held by Matt Van Epps. Downtown Metro Councilmember Jacob Kupin is interested in the seat as well. A bit more compact, and with a bigger Davidson County slice, the new-look 7th District is among Democrats’ best shots at a seat according to voting history. Van Epps will face reelection after less than a year in office and has barely begun to fundraise, reporting about $150,000 on hand as of April 1. State Rep. Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville), who beat out Dixie and Copeland for the district’s Democratic nomination last year, has publicly declared her intent to run.
Metro Councilmember Mike Cortese will switch his candidacy from the old 5th Congressional District, where he would have faced Democratic Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder in the primary and incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles in the general election, to the new 4th District, according to his campaign.
“We are going to send a message loud and clear,” Cortese says in a statement shared with the Scene. “We are tired of Washington sellouts whose only interests are personal gain and their reelection. Tired of watching the people sent to represent us instead make their donors richer and our lives harder. That ends in November.”
Suit focuses on bills removing state law prohibiting congressional district changes between census years
The 4th District’s longtime Republican U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais, a physician, won the seat as part of the GOP’s Tea Party resurgence in 2010 despite substantial personal and professional baggage, including credible reports that he pressured sexual partners into abortions and had extramarital affairs in his workplace. DesJarlais commands a well-oiled fundraising operation but has not faced a real challenge in multiple cycles. The new district includes highly diverse Southeast Nashville, which Cortese represents on the Metro Council. In the city chamber, his public addresses have started to sound more and more like campaign stump speeches.
After last week’s whirlwind, Tennessee Democratic Party Chair Rachel Campbell applauds every member of her party aspiring to higher office.
“We knew this election was coming, and I don’t think we realized how quickly and corruptly the Tennessee governor and GOP would move to illegally draw the lines,” says Campbell, who is backing a current TNDP lawsuit focused on the logistical chaos that will flow from the last-minute overhaul. “Regardless, we’re prepared to compete in every race, and we are proud of every candidate who had the courage to step up and run.”
Campbell stresses the importance of improving affordability and cost of living across the state and frequently repeats a new tagline for the underdog party: “Tennessee is worth fighting for.”
