Voters at Nashville’s Downtown Library cast ballots in 2022 after redistricting realigned electoral maps. (Photo: Ray DiPietro)
With less than three weeks remaining in the campaign season, Tennessee’s House Republicans and Democrats are making a final push to build their brand and win targeted races.
House Speaker Cameron Sexton embarked on the “Tennessee Freedom Tour” Monday, with the first stop in Knoxville at an event held by the Volunteer Republican Women’s Club. He was joined by Knoxville lawmakers, and Republican U.S. Reps. David Kustoff and Tim Burchett on the tour, with “Make America Great Again” overtones as part of former President Donald Trump’s race for the presidency against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. A Trump-Vance logo adorned the side of the tour’s charter bus.
Sexton’s troops were to travel to Blount County Monday night and then to Hoskins Drug Store in Hamilton County Tuesday morning before moving across the state.
A Sexton spokesman did not answer questions Monday about the event’s political strategy. Republicans hold a 75-24 supermajority in the House, enabling them to cut off debate on the House floor and make it difficult for minority party bills to advance out of committees.
Last week, Sexton said, “We feel very good where our incumbent members are,” in some of the challenge races but added “anything could happen” in the election.
House Democrats kicked off a “cost-cutting caravan” that intends to hit focal points of the 2024 election.
It started in Knoxville where Democratic candidate Bryan Goldberg is challenging Republican Rep. Elaine Davis in House District 18. On Tuesday afternoon, it heads toward Chattanooga where Democrats hope to make inroads in District 27 following the defeat of House finance committee Chairwoman Patsy Hazlewood by far-right Republican candidate Michele Reneau in the August primary. Reneau faces Democrat Kathy Lennon, a school board member and teacher, on Nov. 5.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons said Monday his group is concentrating on “cutting costs for working families.” They are calling for elimination of the grocery sales tax and a reduction in fuel taxes while pointing out Republicans doubled the state budget over the last 14 years and gave businesses, most of them them located out of state, a $1.9 billion corporate tax break this year.
Democrats made two statewide bus tours in the past year but are driving in a caravan this year.
“Our stops are all in areas where we’re focused this election cycle,” Clemmons said.
Aside from the Goldberg-Davis race in Knoxville, Democrats are looking for upsets in Chattanooga with the Reneau-Lennon race in District 27 and Republican Rep. Greg Martin against Democrat Allison Gorman in District 26.
Clemmons contends the Chattanooga area is becoming “purple,” meaning it could be bending away from Republican control in suburban areas.
The tour will turn northwest the following day, heading toward Rutherford County where Republican Rep. Mike Sparks of Smyrna is getting a serious challenge from political activist Luis Mata, a Smyrna Democrat, in another area turning purple.
Democrats are trying to maintain House District 67 where Rep. Ronnie Glynn is being challenged by Republican Jamie Dean Peltz.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee is spotlighting the Glynn-Peltz race, as well as House District 75 where Allie Phillips, who had to travel out of state for a lifesaving abortion, is battling Republican Rep. Jeff Burkhart, a former assistant fire chief and Clarksville City Council member.
Republicans ran mailers showing Phillips’ daughter putting bills in a transgender stripper’s suit, leading Democrats to complain about the use of the child’s image. Sexton, though, said he understood the face was blocked out but it was taken off Phillips’ TikTok page and added it came “directly off of a public page she put out in the public domain.”
Sexton denied Republicans plucked the child out of obscurity and put into a campaign, saying Phillips did when she put the child’s picture on social media.
Democrats are also hoping Jesse Huseth, a former educator, can flip District 97 in Memphis by defeating Republican Rep. John Gillespie. Gillespie passed a bill this year prohibiting local governments from adopting ordinances conflicting with state law. The Memphis City Council approved a measure to prevent police from making “pretextual” stops for minor violations such as bad tail lights at the request of the parents of Tyre Nichols, a motorist beaten to death in a confrontation with police. Three officers were convicted in connection with the incident, mainly for tampering with evidence and inflicting bodily harm, but not for murder.
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