The odds are still stacked against Justin Pearson. 

When the Democratic state representative announced that he would continue to run for Congress in a gerrymandered district five months ago, it was seen by many in Tennessee and Washington as more symbolic than viable. Pearson had originally planned to run in a majority-Black district in the Memphis area, challenging Rep. Steven Cohen, a ten-term Democratic incumbent. Then in May, the Republican-controlled state legislature redrew Tennessee's congressional map, splitting off parts of Memphis and combining it with 14 rural counties. Pearson is now running to represent a district that Trump carried by more than 21 points in 2024. 

“We knew this was going to be a harder race after they rigged the maps,” Pearson says in a phone interview. “ It has not deterred us at all.”

This week, Democrats’ House campaign arm gave Pearson’s bid against Republican state Sen. Brent Taylor a vote of confidence, adding Tennessee’s 9th district to its coveted “Red to Blue” list. Campaigns on the list receive “organizational and funding support,” as well as staff resources, training, and strategic guidance, according to a DCCC press release.

The late support comes against the backdrop of a broad national trend of key races shifting in Democrats’ favor. In late September, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report said House Democrats are on track to pick up five to 15 seats. Though Cook still rates Tennessee’s 9th District as a “Solid Republican” seat, emboldened Democrats see a potential blue wave significantly expanding the races in play.

There has been little publicly available polling on the race. A recent poll sampling 400 voters and commissioned by a Democratically-aligned group found Pearson trailing Taylor by four percentage points. 

Pearson sees the addition of his scrappy campaign to the "Red to Blue" program shows the party’s leaders see it as more than just a protest against GOP gerrymandering. He says he’s campaigned in all 15 counties in the new district, holding three to four campaign events daily.

“We've been having listening tours, road-to-victory rallies, meet and greets, fundraisers, and of course we're visiting barber shops and beauty shops and churches here in Memphis and Shelby County too, because we're not going to leave any of this to chance,” Pearson says,

A growing backlash in Tennessee to President Trump and the Iran War is also helping, he says, pointing to rural voters who previously voted for Trump that are now canvassing for him.  “There are a lot of people who voted conservatively in the past who are farmers, who are very frustrated by the tariffs and what they [the Trump administration] have done with beef imports,” Pearson says. “There are people who are having to spend $1,000 a day on their machineries, diesel fuel, and they know that's a direct correlation to the Iran War.”

Closing the gap

Pearson made national headlines in 2023 for getting expelled from the Tennessee legislature for leading a gun reform protest from the House floor. His opponent, Taylor, has sought to brand Pearson as a “democratic socialist” who is too liberal for the district.

“He causes chaos everywhere he goes, and that’s why the voters in Tennessee’s District 9 will vote for competence over chaos,” Taylor said in a statement to TIME. 

Pearson has argued Taylor can’t be trusted to represent the interests of the district’s voters. He highlighted donations Taylor accepted from Elon Musk’s SpaceX. A subsidiary company, SpaceXAI, is seeking to build a massive data center in the Memphis area despite local residents' concerns over environmental impact. 

“My opponent…is about making more money for himself rather than protecting and serving the people in our community and in our state,” Pearson says. 

Taylor, a former owner of funeral homes who is mostly self-funding his campaign, told TIME he sold his business four years ago and retired at age 54 before running for state Senate. He also accused Pearson of never having a real job and being “a paid protester.”

Capitalizing on voters’ energy

When the Supreme Court issued a ruling in April that undermined a major provision of the Voting Rights Act, it prompted multiple Republican-controlled states to quickly redraw its congressional lines. Tennessee was the first to act, with the legislature quickly approving a new map erasing Tennessee's only majority-Black district. Efforts by civil rights groups to convince the courts to block the new map have so far failed. 

Yet the map switch appears to have jolted many of the state’s Democratic voters during the primaries. The Washington Post reported that a fifth of active registered voters in Shelby County, which includes Memphis, cast a ballot in three Democratic primaries for U.S. House seats, the highest level of voter turnout in a decade.

Pearson says Black voters in Tennessee are showing they refuse to be deterred by Republicans’ efforts to dilute their political power. 

“This is just another challenge that we are going to face, and we're going to face it together,” he says. “And we're going to show up more than we have in decades. We're going to participate more than we have in decades because our voting rights are on the ballot.”