Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson, the progressive "Tennessee Three" lawmaker backed by the Squad and national left-wing groups, won the Democratic primary in the state's newly redrawn 9th Congressional District, a seat Republicans redrew to flip.
Pearson defeated state Sen. London Lamar by a 40-point margin Thursday, the Washington Examiner reported, pulling 64.9% to Lamar's 24.9%. Community activist Marion LaTroy Alexandria-Williams and attorney Jim Torino also ran and lost. The win advances Pearson to a November general election against Trump-endorsed state Sen. Brent Taylor, in a district that voted for President Trump by 21 points.
The contest matters far beyond Memphis. Tennessee's Republican-led Legislature redrew the state's congressional map earlier this year after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities. The new lines carved up Memphis's majority-Black 9th District, the only reliably Democratic seat in the state, and split Shelby County across three districts that stretch deep into rural, Republican-leaning territory. Seventy-one percent of voters in the redrawn 9th are new to the district, AP News reported.
The redistricting was no accident. Republican state lawmakers moved quickly after the Supreme Court overturned prior Voting Rights Act precedent, a ruling that now requires proof of racial discrimination before courts can order race-based redistricting. Governor Bill Lee signed the new map into law, the New York Post reported, and the result eliminated Rep. Steve Cohen's majority-minority seat outright. Cohen, who had held the district since 2007, retired rather than run in a redrawn seat tilted against him.
Cohen did not go quietly. He called the redistricting "a blatant, corrupt power grab that would destroy the black community's and our entire city's voice." Tennessee is not alone in this maneuver, Texas, California, Missouri, Virginia, Ohio, and Alabama are all engaged in a rare mid-decade redistricting scramble for partisan advantage.
The reshaped 9th District now runs roughly 200 miles east from Memphis into rural areas, Breitbart reported. President Trump cheered the national redistricting effort as part of a broader strategy to maintain the Republican House majority and endorsed Brent Taylor in the 9th District Republican primary.
That new map favors the GOP in all nine of Tennessee's congressional districts. Cohen had been the lone Democrat in the state's nine-member House delegation, serving alongside eight Republicans since 2023.
Pearson raised millions of dollars throughout his campaign, Fox News Digital reported, significantly outpacing his Democratic opponents. The money came with national progressive backing. Justice Democrats, the Working Families Party, MoveOn, and Indivisible all provided support. Squad members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Summer Lee joined Pearson at a campaign rally in Memphis last month.
His 40-point win over Lamar fits a pattern. Progressive candidates have been defeating more moderate Democrats in 2026 primary races across the country. Pearson's victory suggests that the national left-wing fundraising and organizing apparatus remains potent in Democratic primaries, even in districts where the general election math is forbidding.
But winning a Democratic primary in a district that went for Trump by 21 points is a different proposition from winning the seat. Pearson acknowledged the stakes in his own way, telling voters that the primaries fell on the 61st anniversary of the Voting Rights Act signing.
"The political dilution and degradation of our rights is happening."
That was Pearson's framing of the redistricting fight. Memphis voters echoed the frustration. Lonzo Taylor, a 72-year-old retired postal worker and military veteran, put it plainly: "We only had one district in the whole state of Tennessee, and you don't even want that to be fair? It's just terrible."
Pearson's national profile traces back to a single episode. In 2023, a gunman killed three children and three adults at the Covenant School in Nashville. In the aftermath, Pearson and fellow state Rep. Justin Jones staged a gun-control protest on the Tennessee state House floor, using a bullhorn to disrupt proceedings. Republican lawmakers expelled both men over the protest.
The expulsions made national news and turned Pearson and Jones into progressive icons. Both later regained their seats. A third lawmaker who participated, state Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, avoided expulsion by a single vote.
That notoriety, and the fundraising machine it built, carried Pearson into the congressional race. Whether it carries him past a Trump-endorsed Republican in a district engineered to elect Republicans is another question entirely.
Pearson's primary was not the only consequential result Thursday. In the redrawn 5th Congressional District, former Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher defeated Trump-endorsed Rep. Andy Ogles in the Republican primary, a rare loss for a Trump-backed incumbent. The twin results show that Tennessee's redistricting scrambled both parties' internal dynamics, not just the general election landscape.
For Republicans, the broader picture remains favorable. The new map gives the GOP a structural advantage in every one of Tennessee's nine congressional seats. Even if Pearson runs a strong campaign, the district's composition works against him. Democrats held one Tennessee seat for years. Under the new lines, they may hold none.
Memphis voters sense what is at stake. Milla Meiman, a 23-year-old Democratic primary voter, called the redistricting "a voter suppression tactic." Whether courts agree is an open question, the Supreme Court's recent ruling raised the bar for legal challenges considerably.
Pearson now carries the progressive banner into a general election where the map, the math, and the endorsement from the White House all favor his opponent. National left-wing groups will pour money into the race. Republicans will point to the district's fundamentals and move on.
When politicians redraw the lines, voters get to decide whether the lines hold. In Tennessee's 9th, both sides built for a fight, and November will settle whether a progressive star can outrun a map drawn to stop him.
