Early voting in Tennessee ends Thursday, and for the first time in 50 years Black voters in Memphis will cast congressional ballots in three different districts. The Republican-drawn map folds pieces of the largest majority-Black city in the country into the 5th, 8th and 9th districts, each of which stretches into rural counties.
The 9th was the state’s only Democratic-leaning seat and, for decades, the one where Memphis’s Black voters could elect the candidate they chose. Donald Trump won the redrawn version by more than 21 points in 2024, according to Time.
The legislature passed the map in May, right after the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais weakened protections against racially discriminatory maps. The NAACP and the Memphis Urban League sued, arguing the map was drawn to discriminate against Black voters on purpose. This month a federal three-judge court dismissed the case, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund said Tennessee will hold the November election under the new lines.
“This is about whether Black voters in Memphis have a fair opportunity to elect someone who is responsive to our communities,” Gale Jones Carson, president of the Memphis Urban League, said in the Legal Defense Fund’s statement.
Other challenges have fared no better so far. In May a state-court panel threw out a suit by the NAACP’s Tennessee chapter, ruling that Gov. Bill Lee and the legislature were protected by sovereign immunity and that most plaintiffs had not shown “a distinct and palpable injury.” Rep. Steve Cohen, the Democrat who held the Memphis seat, ended his reelection bid after the lines were redrawn.
The Democrat on the November ballot in the 9th is state Rep. Justin J. Pearson, a Black lawmaker from Memphis. He faces Republican state Sen. Brent Taylor. The district now joins parts of Memphis with 14 rural counties, and Pearson says he has been campaigning in all 15. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added him to its Red to Blue program.
Turnout in the August primary suggests voters noticed. About one in five active voters in Shelby County, which includes Memphis, cast a ballot in the Democratic House primaries, the most in a decade, Time reported. Taylor has said Pearson “causes chaos everywhere he goes.”
“The South is where we decide what type of country we are going to be,” Pearson told The American Prospect. “We’re still here.”
Early voting runs through Thursday, Oct. 29. Election Day is Nov. 3.
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