Early Voting Opens Across Tennessee Ahead of Midterms

Tennesseans can now cast their midterm ballots in federal and state races.

While many races have made headlines, few of them look close. U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn is heavily favored to take over the governor’s mansion, while all nine Congressional seats sit comfortably within Republican grasp after the party redrew district boundaries in May. Fifteen early voting sites are now open across Davidson County. National tailwinds favor Democrats, with the country’s unpopular war on Iran and rising consumer prices tanking President Donald Trump’s base and approval rating, likely handing the minority party the U.S. House of Representatives and possibly the U.S. Senate on Election Day, Nov. 3.

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Sudden redistricting in May allowed Republican state lawmakers to crack the last remaining congressional seat held by a Democrat, adding another layer of confusion and complication for Davidson County voters. Even Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett doesn’t automatically supply some voters’ congressional districts, instead linking off to this map on the state’s online voter registration lookup. The tool shows users state House and Senate districts as well as an Election Day polling location.

Davidson County showed up in droves for the August primary election. Three congressional races split Nashville (the 4th, 6th and 7th districts), while two more stop just over the Williamson County line — including Tennessee's 9th Congressional District, the delegation’s only open seat and a district that runs all the way to Memphis. Many top Republicans rallied with Trump in Clarksville over the weekend and have easily banked millions for an ad push over the next three weeks.

A Davidson County state House seat held by Caleb Hemmer is one of the county’s real tossups. District 59 spans the county’s southern border from Bellevue to Cane Ridge. Former Tennessee State Trooper Mark Proctor, a Democrat, faces Republican Bill Hancock, a realtor with a base in Old Nashville circles.

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Democrat Jerri Green has built a vast volunteer network and packed her schedule with statewide speaking events in her quest to upset Republicans’ four-term streak in the governor’s office. Blackburn’s confidence is spilling into hubris. The senator posted an AI-generated GOTV video on Tuesday night and openly courted big tech at a conference in Nashville last week, seemingly unconcerned about shedding support. After Republican Rep. John Rose bruised Blackburn’s image during the summer primary, two independents — Lauren Pinkston and David Hatley — could draw alienated voters from the GOP favorite, though Blackburn is still in pole position to continue serving atop the state’s political food chain.

Political consultant Darden Copeland, a Democrat, revived his 2025 special election campaign in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, where incumbent Republican Matt Van Epps has kept a low profile throughout his 10 months in Congress. Trump carried the district by over 20 percentage points, but Van Epps’ low name recognition and Copeland’s crossover media strategy could make it closer. Pugnacious pro-Trump state Rep. Johnny Garrett faces resistance from Democrat Mike Croley, a Navy veteran and former federal employee, in Tennessee’s 6th Congressional District, which Rose will vacate in January. Incumbent Republican Scott DesJarlais has survived sex and prescription drug scandals en route to eight terms in Congress and now seeks a ninth in Tennessee’s 4th Congressional District, where he faces a relatively unknown challenger in Democrat Victoria Broderick.

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Beshear Campaigns for Molder as Dems Eye Midterms

Kentucky governor soft-launched his own 2028 presidential bid at private Nashville fundraiser for the 5th Congressional District candidate

Last year, Democratic Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder was running to upset unpopular Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles in Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District. Lawmakers rearranged the seat’s geography underneath the rising Democrat in May, then former Tennessee Commissioner of Agriculture Charlie Hatcher beat Ogles in the Republican primary, setting up an easier hold for the GOP. Molder recently hosted Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear in Nashville and has the talent and energy for future political aspirations should he lose on Nov. 3. His district includes about half of Williamson County and ends just shy of Belle Meade and Forest Hills.

Democratic state Rep. Justin Pearson of Memphis first exceeded expectations when he won a special election at 28 years old to serve in the state legislature. A few months later, he was expelled from the chamber after protesting gun violence as part of the Tennessee Three in a high-profile episode that vaulted Pearson into the national spotlight. He was returned to his seat and kept rising, announcing a congressional run at incumbent Democrat Steve Cohen in the 9th Congressional District last year before Republicans diluted the Memphis vote across three seats and Cohen passed on reelection. Republican state Sen. Brent Taylor, a businessman who became wealthy running and selling funeral homes, took the contested Republican nomination in August and holds a projected advantage over Pearson.

Three constitutional amendments will also go in front of Tennessee voters. The first revokes Tennesseans' right to bail under specified conditions, including when accused of certain serious violent felonies. It's opposed by many Democrats and favored by Republican lawmakers, who have pushed for harsher bail restrictions in the state legislature. The second would ban a state property tax, just as the constitution banned a state income tax in 2014. The third is a version of a victims' bill of rights that has expanded across the U.S. in the past 20 years. It expands the role of crime victims in judicial proceedings related to their offender and grants additional legal protections for crime victims.