Gloria Johnson, a Tennessee state representative who faced an expulsion vote last year for participating in a gun control protest on the Statehouse floor, won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate on Thursday, according to The Associated Press, and will challenge Marsha Blackburn, the Republican incumbent.
Ms. Johnson catapulted to national attention last April as one of the “Tennessee Three,” who led the protest at the State Capitol after a shooter killed three students and three staff members at a Nashville Christian school.
While the Republican supermajority expelled the other two representatives, Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson, both young Black Democrats, Ms. Johnson, who is white, avoided the same fate by one vote. Both men were soon reinstated, while Ms. Johnson, the only one of the three old enough to run for Senate, was encouraged to run against Ms. Blackburn.
Ms. Johnson easily won her primary on Thursday, The Associated Press said, beating Marquita Bradshaw, an environmental justice activist; Civil Miller-Watkins, a teacher; and Lola Denise Brown, a Democratic activist.
Ms. Blackburn swatted away a long-shot Republican primary challenge from a former Statehouse staff member, Tres Wittum.
Ms. Blackburn, the first woman elected to represent Tennessee in the Senate, is widely favored to keep her seat. A fervent supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, she has gained attention for her aggressive — and at times misleading — questioning of Democratic nominees and hard-line stances.
At the Republican National Convention last month, she confronted Kimberly A. Cheatle, the Secret Service director who has since resigned, over the security failures that led up to an assassination attempt against Mr. Trump. And Ms. Blackburn is the lead Republican author of a sprawling Senate package aimed at protecting teenagers and children online, though it is unclear whether opposition from the tech industry and free speech concerns will prevent it from becoming law.
Democrats have charged that Ms. Blackburn’s policy positions — particularly her opposition to abortion rights and tightening gun laws — are too extreme for the state.
Ms. Johnson, a former teacher who first ran for the State Legislature in 2012, has repeatedly tangled with the state’s Republican supermajority. She has traveled across the state in recent weeks in an effort to not only introduce herself to more centrist and conservative voters, but also to galvanize the state’s Democratic minority.
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