Urban Candidates Pivot to Rural Voters After Tennessee Redistricting

On a humid July day, Tennessee state Rep. Justin J. Pearson and state Sen. London Lamar, the frontrunners in the Democratic primary for the state’s 9th Congressional District, made their bid for support in front of more than 60 people crammed under a park pavilion in Shelbyville, Tennessee. 

Shelbyville is home to 23,000 people, 30% of whom are Latino and work at the local Tyson poultry plant or at local horse stables. The town is the county seat of Bedford County, best known as the Walking Horse Capital of the World. 

Three months prior, Pearson and Lamar would have had no reason to be campaigning here, four hours away from their Memphis homes. But on May 7, just over a week after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Louisiana v. Callais that overturned the creation of a Black-majority district in Louisiana, Tennessee’s Republican-majority state legislature approved new district maps.

The new map split the Black-majority 9th District, the state’s only Democratic congressional district, which covers Memphis and surrounding areas, into three Republican-leaning districts. Now, candidates for the 9th District are taking their messages across 15 counties in a district that is whiter, more Republican and more rural than its previous iteration. 

“What is apparent to me is our issues are shared,” Pearson told the crowd, who gathered for the meet-and-greet event hosted by the Bedford County Democrats on July 11. “The truth of the matter is most people are struggling right now in District 9, whether you are a farmer who is worried about the debt you have to take on and the monopoly of corporations like Cargill or John Deere, whether you are in Giles County making $10 an hour.”

Pearson and Lamar have much in common: They’re young, Black Memphians who have focused on issues of affordability in their appeal to the sprawling district. They both want data center moratoriums, an increase to the minimum wage, universal health care and universal child care. 

But they’ve taken different approaches: Lamar, who has described herself as an “establishment” Democrat, touts her record of working within a Republican-controlled system to pass legislation. Pearson, on the other hand, was expelled by Republicans from the state legislature in 2023 as part of his protest for gun control with the “Tennessee Three.” He has instead used his growing national platform and local organizing to push for change.

Pearson and Lamar are looking to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, who has endorsed Lamar. Cohen, who is white, has often described himself as an advocate for Black Memphians. He has served the majority Black district since 2007. Both Lamar and Pearson previously worked as interns in Cohen’s office. 

Lamar launched her campaign on May 25, following Cohen’s announcement that he would not run for the newly re-districted seat. “She’s the best candidate,” Cohen said of Lamar when he announced his endorsement. “She’s got character. She’s got the disposition to be a good congressperson.” 

Cohen has had extensive support among unions, but despite his endorsement of Lamar, she has not yet received the kind of financial support that tends to come with such endorsements. Several smaller unions have endorsed Pearson. Those have included the United Campus Workers of Tennessee and AFSCME Local 1733, the union that organized the historic sanitation workers strike of 1968 in Memphis.

Lamar did receive, on July 5, a $1,000 contribution from Tennesseans for Putting Students First, the PAC associated with the Tennessee CAN Action Fund, which promotes the state’s school voucher system. Established in 2019, Tennessee’s school voucher program in effect, defunds both rural and urban public schools by transferring tax dollars to private academies.

Pearson, who has been campaigning since last year, has raised more than $2.35 million to Lamar’s estimated $80,000. He has received endorsements from Democratic Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) and Summer Lee (Pa.), who on July 20, stumped for Pearson from the stage of the New Direction Christian Church in the Hickory Hill neighborhood.

Speaking to a standing-room crowd of 1,200, Ocasio-Cortez said:

It seems very clear to me that the people turning back the clock on our rights are afraid of you. They’re afraid of this city’s legacy of fighting back, of (the) hunger for justice. They believed that if they broke apart this city, they could break apart its political power. They believed that if they changed the past, they could change the future. But they were wrong.

Republicans are locked in a four-person primary race that includes state Rep. Todd Warner of Chapel Hill, in rural Marshall County, and state Sen. Brent Taylor of Eads in Shelby County, who garnered President Donald Trump’s endorsement in July. Taylor, considered the frontrunner, has run on the MAGA “America first,” agenda. He’s been an avid supporter of Trump’s Memphis Safe Task Force, which flooded Memphis with law enforcement from 31 federal, state and local agencies. 

Across the country, progressive Democrats have won primaries over their establishment opponents, reflecting an electorate frustrated with a worsening affordability crisis and suspicious of the influence that corporations and dark money interest groups exert into politics and daily life. It’s unclear, however, if that progressive tide will sweep through Tennessee, where Democrats with close ties to corporations and Republicans have historically performed better than their more progressive counterparts.  

Who voters choose will signal, according to experts, whether Tennessee Democrats have become more willing to support anti-establishment figures who directly challenge those in power. “The Democratic Party is not a monolith,” said Willie Simon, chairman of the Shelby County Democratic Party. “London has learned to be a chameleon and navigate through [Republican control]. Justin chooses not to become a chameleon. He wants them to notice that there is a change coming and to acknowledge that change needs to happen.”

Candidates tackle health care, pollution 

Pearson grew up in Southwest Memphis, which has some of the worst air pollution in the nation, according to a 2013 study That area of Memphis has suffered from pollution from a coal ash plant, diesel trucks, a natural gas refinery and other industries. Pearson lost both of his grandmothers to cancer.

The son of a preacher and a teacher, Pearson stepped into activism in high school, when he advocated for textbooks about government. In 2019, Pearson and others fought back against a plan to build an oil pipeline through majority-Black neighborhoods in Memphis, and he co-founded Memphis Community Against the Pipeline (later renamed Memphis Community Against Pollution). The pipeline plan was ultimately cancelled. 

Later, Pearson fought against Sterilization Services of Tennessee, leading to the plant’s closure in 2023. Pearson was elected to the statehouse that same year, then expelled when he participated in an anti-gun violence protest. The expulsion and his subsequent return gave him national recognition.

“We have to move the needle and I have colleagues who can say they passed bills, but they haven’t moved the needle on things that matter to us, whether it be environmental justice or economic justice,” Pearson says in an interview. 

None of Pearson’s bills have passed into law, although he’s cosponsored several. Pearson says he’s been blocked by Republican leadership due to his willingness to speak out against powerful groups like the National Rifle Association. He says:

When you stand up to white supremacy, against misogyny, against transphobia, and all these things, you’re not typically rewarded for that. When you stand up to the NRA within the first couple of months of being in elected office, you don’t get rewarded for that.

Pearson credits his movement’s pressure on Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee for an executive order Lee signed requiring background checks for firearm purchases, Pearson said in an interview. He added that this demonstrates his record of creating change beyond writing legislation. “That’s how we win, and building multiracial coalitions, building multi-socioeconomic coalitions is what I’ve been doing for the last six years.” 

The youngest woman and African American ever elected to the Tennessee Senate, Lamar says she grew up learning about leadership from her grandmother. While she initially had planned to study engineering in college, seeing the Obamas walk across the stage after President Barack Obama’s election “lit a fire” in her. She switched her major to political science. When she returned to Memphis, she relaunched the Shelby County Young Democrats and later led the Tennessee Young Democrats. 

Lamar was elected to the statehouse in 2018, then appointed to the state senate in 2022. She has chaired the Tennessee Senate Democratic Caucus. She’s passed 23 bills, including requiring the state health department to include maternal mental health disorders in continuing education programs. 

Those projects stem from her own experiences. She lost a pregnancy at eight months, and saw a cousin die due to complications during childbirth. She often points to the fact that Tennessee has the highest maternal mortality rate in the country. 

Lamar says bills like these show her ability to legislate on what she calls “strong Democratic principles” while reaching across the aisle. In 2022, she was named legislator of the year by the Rural Health Association of Tennessee. 

If you care about being pro-life, then you should align with my agenda around maternal health to ensure women and babies are not dying through the pregnancy process. Then, to put some money behind that, that to me was one of my most proud accomplishments.

Since Republicans drew the new district boundaries, the pair have spent much of their time traveling. In June, Pearson completed a tour of all 15 counties in the district. In a July 11 interview, Lamar said she had visited nine of the counties, with plans to visit all before the primary on August 6. 

The two candidates’ strategies could play differently across the district. Meryl Rice, a Hardeman County resident, said she anticipates that Lamar’s approach will resonate with the more conservative rural areas outside Memphis.  

“We need somebody that’s more, that’s not just out there left, way out there left,” Rice says. “We need that activism, yes, but it’s not gonna play well in the more conservative areas of this district, which stretches all the way to Williamson County.” 

Others disagree. 

The Rev. Earle Fisher, founder of #UPTheVote901 based in Memphis, says voters “appreciate [people like Pearson’s] authenticity even if they disagree with their stance and their posture.”

“I have seen London maneuver in a way that I believe she thinks appeals to white voters in ways that I don’t think actually are persuasive,” says Fisher, who is a senior pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Memphis. Fisher is Black. 

Both candidates have addressed unique challenges facing rural Tennessee, including the need for Medicaid expansion. Sixteen rural hospitals have closed across the state since 2005. Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, has identified four West Tennessee hospitals at risk of future closure.

Pearson has said he’ll advocate to end all debt for farmers. Lamar has said she wants assistance for crop insurance and generational leadership training for farming families. 

Affordability at bedrock of both campaigns 

As rain poured down around the Shelbyville pavilion, 49-year-old Amber Evans and Lola, her 6-year-old granddaughter, posed for a picture with Pearson. Later, Lola ran up to speak to Lamar. 

Evans, a disabled grandmother raising Lola on a fixed income of $2,400 a month, listened as Lamar and Pearson discussed the need for better wages and universal health care. 

“All of us are dealing with the issues of affordability, high gas prices, high grocery prices, unaffordable rent, all the issues that make it hard for us to provide for our family and have a decent quality of life,” Lamar told the crowd. 

Bedford County has about 55,273 people and is 84% white and 8% Black, a contrast to Memphis, whose population of 609,647 is about 63% Black and 24% white. 

Evans said the messages from the two Memphians about affordability resonated, even if she’s not sure yet which candidate will get her vote. 

Across the country, Democrats have decided the winning strategy against Republicans is hammering the affordability crisis. That’s especially important for this new district’s open seat, which Cook Political Report describes as a “solid” Republican district, but the most competitive in the state.

The likelihood of being unable to afford the cost of living is highest in rural areas, according to an Urban Institute report, which featured the news that nearly half of American families cannot afford the cost of living.

Cassie Gant, is an organizer for the Pearson campaign. She says many folks at a Pearson rally in travel outside Giles county for work, Others she says fear they’ll have to leave the county  in search of affordable housing. Says Gant:

Those are really some big things that people loved from Rep. Pearson was his focus on affordable living. Affordable housing, groceries, health care, those are all things that really spoke to everybody that was in the room.

Pulaski, the county seat of Giles County, is home to 8,394 people. It is also famous as the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan. Historically, Gant says, residents there haven’t had high-profile Democrats to vote for. 

Pearson’s rally in Pulaski drew a racially diverse crowd of about 200, according to Gant. She says Giles County is still rural and very red, with significant racial segregation. But in the past few months, she’s seen things change: white and Black residents coming together to celebrate Juneteenth, to support the NAACP and to hear from Pearson.

“Even if the campaign doesn’t go how we would like to, it has changed Giles County for at least my lifetime,” says Gant. 

Katherine BurgessMore by this author →

Katherine Burgess is the government accountability reporter at MLK50: Justice Through Journalism in Memphis. She previously worked at the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, the Wichita Eagle in Wichita, Kansas, and the Jackson Sun in Jackson, Tennessee, covering everything from education to religion to natural disasters.