Squad-backed ‘Tennessee Three’ lawmaker wins House primary in newly redrawn district

Squad-backed Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson, District 86, part of the trio of lawmakers in his state referred to as the “Tennessee Three,” won the Democratic primary Thursday in Tennessee’s newly redrawn 9th Congressional District.

Pearson defeated state Sen. London Lamar, District 33, community activist Marion LaTroy Alexandria-Williams and attorney Jim Torino. He will face Brent Taylor, the Republican nominee who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, in November with his campaign warchest of millions of dollars he has raised throughout his campaign, significantly outpacing his Democratic opponents.

The Memphis-area state lawmaker entered the primary with the backing of prominent Democrats who are part of the progressive group of lawmakers called “the Squad,” including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Summer Lee, D-Pa., who all joined Pearson at a campaign rally in Memphis last month.

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Known for his fiery, preacher-style speeches, Pearson has also received support from national left-wing groups including Justice Democrats, the Working Families Party, MoveOn and Indivisible.

Pearson rose to national prominence in 2023 as one of the “Tennessee Three” lawmakers who participated in a gun-control protest on the state House floor following the Covenant School shooting in Nashville that killed three young kids and three adults.

Republican lawmakers subsequently expelled Pearson and fellow state Rep. Justin Jones over the protest, though they later regained their seats. 

A third Democrat, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, avoided expulsion by a single vote, according to local media reporting.

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The open-seat primary won by Pearson on Thursday followed a redrawing of Tennessee’s congressional map that divided Memphis among three Republican-leaning districts and prompted longtime Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., to retire.

Before the new map, heavily Democratic Memphis was largely kept together in the 9th District, giving Tennessee Democrats one reliable congressional seat in an otherwise deeply Republican state.

Cohen has been the lone Democrat in Tennessee’s nine-member House delegation alongside eight Republicans since 2023, but the new map favors the GOP in all nine districts.