Earlier in the week, State Representative Justin Pearson announced he is running for Congress in Tennessee’s 9th district.
The 9th district has been represented by Steve Cohen for some 20 years.
Cohen won the Democratic nomination in 2006. In a stacked primary Cohen garnered 31% of the vote.
Were it not for the huge field (15 candidates in all) Cohen may not have won. But he also might have.
Cohen has consistently sent primary and general election challengers back to the bench.
Just two years later, Cohen crushed his nearest opponent from 2006, Nikki Tinker. This decisive win quieted some of the complaints about a white man representing a majority African American district, but not all of them.
Since then, Cohen has taken every primary challenge seriously, even the unserious ones.
So, if Pearson wants to win the primary, his work is cut out for him.
About Justin
Justin Pearson has built a brand based around activism.
My first personal contact with him was during the Byhalia pipeline debate many years ago. I think he may have been in, or just out of High School at the time. He spoke eloquently and from a very well informed place. He was emotional, but used emotion to push a very statistical point about the state people’s health in and around the area the pipeline would touch.
At that moment, I knew Pearson would run for some kind of office.
Pearson has since attracted national attention for his activism in the Tennessee Legislature. A member of the “Tennessee Three”, Pearson was expelled from the State House in 2023 for a protest on the House floor, only to be reappointed by the Shelby County Commission, then re-elected in 2024.
Contrasts
One of the biggest challenges for Pearson will be contrasting himself with Cohen. What would he do differently? What isn’t Cohen doing?
Cohen has a long legislative history to pick apart. But finding votes to run against that are: a. relevant to this election, and b.something that will garner attention, may be a heavy lift.
Looking at Pearson’s top issues: Environmental Justice, Gun Violence, Poverty and Healthcare, these are all things Cohen has shown support for. Whether or not he’s used the same language is another matter.
The Grey House
Age may be something Pearson could highlight.
Certainly, House Democrats have a ton of people who, like Cohen, are over 75. And as a general statement, I agree the House is too grey.
The Physician of the US House shouldn’t have to be a Gerontologist.
But old people vote, especially in Primaries, in much higher numbers than young people.
Messengers
Message delivery is another area where Pearson may excel. Pearson knows how to deliver a message in a way that Cohen, who is somewhat gaffe prone, does not.
Pearson’s message and language follows a pattern of new progressives in the vein of AOC, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie. That kind of message fires up a crowd and garners attention.
But the Democratic establishment is moving slowly, perhaps too slowly, on the economic justice issue, to deliver the kind of transformational change these scions talk about.
Pearson, if elected, would most likely run into as much resistance from his colleagues on the left as the ones on the right.
It’s not as if Cohen has an overly conservative voting record. On all votes there is only a 2% gap between his voting record and AOC’s, and on crucial votes that gap is less than 7% according to Progressive Punch.
Making a case for that 7% is going to take a TON of voter education.
Change vs. Same
Back in college one of my professors talked about elections, and said you can basically drill them down to two kinds: Change elections, and Same elections.
Is 2026 a “change” election for Democrats?
See, 2026 may be a “change” election for the general election. The composition of Congress sure seems like there’s a leftward shift on the horizon. And certainly, after the moves in Texas, Missouri, and other states to remove Democratic seats, GOP leadership is scared of a “Change” election ending their majority.
But that doesn’t mean the primary is a “change” election.
Primaries are fundamentally different.
They’re smaller.
They’re filled with political nerds who know each other and blah, blah, blah all the time about how many of each other they know.
Setting the urgency, especially for young people, to get out and vote in an election they, most likely didn’t even know about, is going to be hard.
Identifying those potential primary voters will be harder, since so many of them have NEVER voted in a primary and no one knows how they MIGHT vote in this one.
So yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how this shakes out.
Conclusion
“You come at the King, you best not miss” – Omar Little, The Wire
I’m gonna be honest with you, I saw this coming a mile away and hoped it wouldn’t. But here we are.
I wish it wasn’t like this.
I wish Justin were running in a Primary for an open seat with a not too crowded field of really qualified candidates.
I wish this primary was focused on bringing up a new generation of leadership instead of change vs. same.
But Pearson has made a decision, and I have no doubt Cohen will fight like his life depends on it to keep the nomination, and ultimately the seat.
I hope that Cohen doesn’t make this personal and seek to destroy Pearson the way he has other opponents.
We need strong young leadership in Memphis, and Pearson seems like he’s willing to take that on. So run your campaign Steve, but realize, you don’t have to go nuclear.
There aren’t enough young people willing to take the lead.
For most people, a loss in a primary defines their future. Most fade out of the political limelight.
If Pearson loses the primary, I’m not sure he will fade away. There’s too much fire there.
I only hope that, if this isn’t a successful challenge for Pearson, he’ll stay in the game. He’ll find another way to lead.
And if he does lose, I hope Cohen spends some time with him after the campaign to help keep him in the game.
That’s what leadership looks like.
Ed. Note: An earlier version of this post had Pearson’s image scaled way down. This was unintentional, and mostly because I don’t use WordPress every day the way I used to and I’m an idiot at it sometimes.
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