Candidate Field Set After Republicans Redrew Tennessee District Lines

Tennessee voters on Thursday settled on their congressional candidates for the November midterms, the first batch of politicians to run after the state’s Republican legislators redrew district maps this year.

The new lines slice through Memphis, where most of the state’s Black voters live, in a bid to eliminate the state’s only Democratic-held seat. The map was approved in early May, shortly after the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by making it much harder to draw district lines with race as a factor.

Here’s how the primary races turned out.

Embattled Andy Ogles loses his primary in a newly drawn district.

The redrawing of district lines included an effort to shore up the seat of Representative Andy Ogles, a firebrand conservative known for anti-Muslim rhetoric and unusual campaign finances.

But Mr. Ogles, who had secured President Trump’s endorsement, lost to Charlie Hatcher, a former Tennessee agriculture commissioner, in an upset in the Fifth Congressional District. Mr. Hatcher will face Mayor Chaz Molder of Columbia, Tenn., who won the Democratic primary.

Both Mr. Hatcher’s farm and Mr. Molder’s home were drawn just outside the district in May.

The district, which had included some of liberal Nashville and surrounding Davidson County, now stretches west to include part of Memphis. Without Democratic votes in Nashville, Mr. Molder has leaned on his family’s connections to western Tennessee for the much tougher run ahead.

But Mr. Hatcher is viewed as a tougher opponent in a general election than Mr. Ogles, given Mr. Ogles’s embattled reputation in the state and Mr. Hatcher’s support from more centrist, establishment Republicans.

Justin Pearson will run in a newly Republican district.

Tennessee’s Ninth Congressional District, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis, has long been represented by a Democrat, but Steve Cohen, the longtime occupant of the seat, opted not to seek re-election after Republicans carved up the city and drew a new district favoring their party.

State Representative Justin J. Pearson, who won national attention after he was briefly expelled from the legislature for protesting a lack of gun regulations in 2023, had already challenged Mr. Cohen when the district was solidly Democratic. Mr. Pearson decided he would still try his luck with the newly drawn lines. On Thursday, he defeated State Senator London Lamar, a Democrat backed by Mr. Cohen.

“I will always put you first,” he told a raucous crowd in Memphis.

He will face State Senator Brent Taylor, a Memphis Republican who has rankled many Democrats in the city with his conservative views and his defense of the Trump administration. Mr. Taylor is favored to flip the seat.

“The voters chose a fighter who will never back down and who represents the values of this redrawn district — one that already showed its colors by supporting President Trump by a decisive margin,” Mr. Taylor said in a statement.

There is no love lost between the two men from their time in their General Assembly. On Thursday, Mr. Pearson called Mr. Taylor a “spineless bootlicker,” while Mr. Taylor framed the race as “the fight against evil.”

A conservative legislator wins an open-seat primary.

The Sixth Congressional District, which includes part of Nashville, was left vacant when Representative John Rose, a Republican, ran unsuccessfully for governor. State Representative Johnny Garrett, who lives in Goodlettsville, just outside Nashville, won the Republican primary and is favored to keep the seat in conservative hands.

He will face Mike Croley, a former state park ranger and Navy veteran, who won the Democratic nomination.