State Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) has secured the Democratic nomination to run for one of Tennessee’s two U.S. Senate seats. Johnson, who has served four terms as a Democrat in the Tennessee General Assembly, defeated Memphis activist Marquita Bradshaw and two other candidates in the Aug. 1 primary.
Though incumbent Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who took office in 2019, faced a meager challenge in the Republican primary from Tres Wittum, she easily defeated the 37-year-old and secured her party’s nomination to run for reelection.Â
Legislature star has spent her Democratic primary campaign running against Marsha Blackburn
Shortly after the 2023 Covenant School shooting in Nashville, Johnson joined fellow Democratic state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson in protesting GOP inaction on gun reform. The moment brought attention and money to the “Tennessee Three,” and Johnson took the opening, declaring her candidacy in September of last year. She has raised more than $5 million since declaring, and has largely focused her campaign on criticizing Blackburn rather than Bradshaw or her other fellow Democrats during the primary race. Bradshaw won the Democratic primary for Tennessee’s other U.S. Senate seat in 2020, but lost that race to Bill Hagerty by roughly 27 percentage points.
Blackburn, meanwhile, has roughly $9 million on hand to spend in the general race. An original Tea Party loyalist, 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. She defeated popular two-term Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen by a margin of roughly 11 percentage points in the 2018 general election, and has been among former President Donald Trump’s fiercest allies and defenders in the U.S. Senate since.
Johnson and Blackburn will face off on the Nov. 5 ballot.
