Republican Memphis state Sen. Brent Taylor and Democratic Memphis state Rep. Justin J. Pearson will face off in the general election for Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District after they won their respective primaries Thursday.
Taylor defeated Chapel Hill state Rep. Todd Warner, retired U.S. Army Sergeant Jeremy Thompson and four-time congressional candidate Charlotte Bergmann.
Pearson won against Memphis state Sen. London Lamar and healthcare executive Jim Torino. The second term state lawmaker swept the Democratic field with just under 65% of the ballots.
State Republicans held a special redistricting session in May to explicitly redraw Tennessee’s 9th U.S. House seat in hopes of flipping control of the seat. The district as it was previously drawn has been represented by Democrats for more than 40 years. The redistricting session followed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais that struck down a portion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act allowing for the creation of majority minority districts.
Traditionally, the seat has been drawn to include almost all of Memphis and has been represented by U.S. Rep. Steven Cohen, a Democrat, for the past two decades. After the seat was redrawn, Cohen dropped out of the race.
The new seat is now an L-shaped district that includes two of the state’s wealthiest suburbs in Nashville and Memphis on its ends, pinning vast swaths of rural Middle and southwest Tennessee counties in between.
The district’s jagged western edge includes the town of Eads in Shelby County, where Taylor lives, and ends at the Memphis airport.
Taylor and Pearson were the only candidates for either party to raise over $1 million for the election.
Taylor, a former funeral home director, put in over $1 million of his own cash into the race and took just over 46% of Republican votes. He also received the endorsement of President Donald Trump.
Pearson rose to national prominence after he was temporarily expelled from the state House in 2023 for protesting gun violence on the state House floor. The recognition has allowed him to raise a large amount of money from small donors all across the country.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced Wednesday that it was adding Tennessee’s 9th District to its seats in play during the 2026 November midterm election.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the district as “Solid Republican” with a Republican plus 9 ranking, the lowest GOP lean of any seat in the state.
Originally published on tennesseelookout.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.
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