Democratic turnout for House primaries in a majority-Black Tennessee county surged to the highest level in a decade Thursday, the latest sign that redistricting may be energizing Black voters across the South.
A fifth of active registered voters cast a ballot in three Democratic U.S. House primaries held Thursday in Shelby County, which includes Memphis. That’s more than double the turnout percentage for similar contests in 2024.
Organizers said the outpouring was motivated by anger over the Republican-led legislature’s action to break up the state’s only majority-Black congressional district after the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated minority voter protections in the Voting Rights Act this year. Lawmakers dispersed the Black voters of Shelby County into three separate districts that stretch into rural White communities.
“People are pissed off,” said Kristal Knight, chairwoman of the voting rights group Organize Tennessee. Memphis is “the densest part of the African American vote in the state, and people really took it personally — you are trying to come into our county, break up our county and split our vote? And what better way to push back than to say we’re going to turn out.”
President Donald Trump has pushed red states to draw new congressional districts to help the GOP maintain control of the House in elections this fall. The Supreme Court’s gutting of protections in the Voting Rights Act made that easier. Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee quickly drew new maps that dilute Black voting power, raising fears that the civil rights gains of the past 60 years are being destroyed.
But the actions have galvanized Black voters, who have mobilized protests in many states and turned out in historic numbers in primaries in South Carolina. That turnout helped prompt the South Carolina legislature to abandon plans to dissolve a majority-Black district. The Georgia legislature also opted not to act after an outpouring of opposition.
“People are really amped up about … what is happening across the South,” Knight said. “People need to show the rest of America, this is not the way you treat voters.”
Democrats and voting rights organizers had worked overtime in Tennessee over the past few weeks to ensure a big presence in primary elections there for governor, a U.S. Senate seat and the state’s nine House districts, even though Republicans are heavily favored to win those races in November.
“A night like last night lets you know it’s not all in vain,” said the Rev. Earle Fisher, pastor at Abyssinian Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis, who was among an outspoken, ardent group of faith leaders in the city who ramped up turnout effortsafter redistricting.
Memphis resident Harmony Lucas, 26, was one of the young voters who helped to boost turnout — urging friends, family and even co-workers to join her at the polls. Lucas said she has voted in the past, but the GOP effort to break up the state’s only majority-Black district “made me realize I had to get more serious that my voice is heard. It matters.”
Ian Randolph, who founded the Shelby County Voter Alliance to boost voter participation, attributed the jump in turnout in part to such efforts, including by unions and other civic organizations. In recent months, they have had poll parties, done texting and phone banking, and gone door to door to canvass voters.
“Everything that touches a voter, we are involved in,” Randolph said. “Working those things got us a better turnout.”
New map
Current House seat control
Rep. Steve Cohen, Tennessee’s lone Democratic congressman, decided not to seek reelection after the 9th District, which he represents, was overhauled. Justin Pearson — a charismatic Black preacher who received national attention in 2023 for his expulsion from the state legislature after protesting at the Capitol in Nashville — won the Democratic nomination to wage the uphill battle to replace Cohen.
In his victory speech Thursday night, Pearson depicted his candidacy as an act of defiance against redistricting and the undermining of the Voting Rights Act, calling those steps “a blatant attempt to keep people like us out of power and an attempt to make us quit.”
GOP strategist Ward Baker, who is working in the 9th District with Republican nominee Brent Taylor, disputed the idea that Black voters are turning out in bigger numbers out of anger over redistricting.
“It’s the first time there’s a contested primary in a long time, and several people are running,” Baker said. He pointed out that Republican voters overall still outnumber Democrats by a wide margin.
Beyond redistricting, Randolph said voters in the majority-Black county have been energized by other issues including an attempted state takeover of Memphis-Shelby County Schools and the presence of federal immigration agents and the National Guard in the city.
Democrats’ task gets harder heading into general elections this fall. Tennessee’s 9th District, which had been the state’s only blue seat, is now rated Solid Republican by the Cook Political Report and went for Trump by 21 points in 2024.
“Everyone that came out last night — that needs to double for November,” Knight said.
Fisher said he and other pastors have been planning another “Souls to the Polls” rally like the one that drew more than 1,000 people this spring. Thursday’s show of force gives him cautious optimism for November.
“At least some of what we did worked,” Fisher said. “It’s one of those instances where you can log it as a win and build on it, but it’s not like a victory lap.”
Eric Lau and Ela Jalil contributed to this report.
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