Justin Pearson had spent months campaigning to represent his congressional district in the Memphis area. Then, in just three days, Tennessee Republicans erased it.
The new map, passed in a special session and signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee on May 7, split the only majority-Black district into three areas and folded them into adjacent Republican-leaning districts. In doing so, it transformed the 9th District from a solid Democratic seat into a Republican stronghold with an estimated nine-point advantage, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan organization Cook Political Report.
For Pearson, the message was unmistakable. Months before voters would cast their ballots, a community that had long held political power in Memphis was being carved out of its own representation.
“It's a very visceral, painful experience to see a community that I've been running to represent being changed so drastically and so significantly, to try and steal an election for the president of the United States,” Pearson told TIME in a phone interview from Memphis.
The Democratic state representative, who launched his campaign in October, said he was not surprised that Tennessee lawmakers moved to redraw congressional lines days after President Trump spoke with Gov. Lee about seizing more Republican seats in Congress ahead of the midterm elections. But he found the speed of the process striking.
The map was enacted three months before Tennessee’s primary election, making it the first gerrymandered map created after the Supreme Court ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act. Pearson said that, as a state representative, he was not able to see how the changes would affect the seat he was seeking until the penultimate day of the special session.
But defiance has long defined Pearson. In 2023, Pearson and his colleague state Rep. Justin Jones were expelled from the legislature for leading a protest inside the state Capitol demanding gun reforms after a deadly school shooting in Nashville. Both lawmakers were unanimously reinstated after their expulsions drew widespread criticism as anti-democratic overreach.
“I don't come from a family of quitters. This community did not build me and make me a quitter. We are fighters. We're fighters for justice, for equality, for fairness, for our democracy, and for what every person needs and deserves,” he said.
Shortly after the state legislature announced the newly passed congressional map, Pearson joined hundreds of civil rights leaders, lawmakers, and voters protesting the gerrymandering. Soon after, he was stripped of all of his committee assignments.
Republicans in Tennessee have maintained that the move to eliminate the last Democratic district in the state was justified following the Supreme Court ruling. Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who is running for Tennessee governor, proposed a 9-0 map on X in late April, saying that keeping Tennessee red is "essential" to cement Trump’s agenda.
“The court sided with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision for a colorblind society and said that racial preferencing doesn’t belong in our elections, just as it doesn’t belong in college admissions,” Sen. Blackburn wrote in an op-ed explaining her proposal.
Pearson’s campaign is unfolding against a rapidly shifting national political landscape ahead of November’s elections. Since 2025, eight states have changed their congressional maps, while Alabama and Louisiana have also moved to redraw theirs. According to the latest nonpartisan analysis by the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, Republicans could gain up to 10 additional seats from the new maps being drawn.
For Pearson, the speed of the redistricting push reflects how quickly racism is moving to disenfranchise Black voters in America, especially in the South.
“It has not deterred us from what we are doing. It has not deterred us from what we believe is necessary and is possible, even in a district that they've cracked and tried to silence our voices,” he added.
With less than 90 days left before the primary election, Pearson is now running in a newly redrawn district that stretches from the Memphis metropolitan area into rural parts of Tennessee.
The map is also subject to ongoing legal challenges. On Wednesday, a federal judge denied a request by a group of Black voters, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), to block the map before the primary election. The voters are expected to appeal the decision, adding further uncertainty.
“I've even had Republicans come up to me and say, ‘what they're doing is unfair. What they're doing is wrong. They're trying to cheat to win instead of winning over people with their ideas,’” Pearson said. He also noted that during the special session, Republicans eliminated a law requiring voters to be notified by mail when their districts change, leaving many voters he has met on the campaign trail unaware that they are now in a redrawn district.
“This has been a very chaotic and opaque process. A lot of people know that something is going on, but too few really know the consequences of what it means for them,” he explained.
Pearson, who continues to receive endorsements from progressive lawmakers nationwide, has called for more political investment in the South from the national establishment.
“What it cost some folks to run for Congress in California would be the cost of a strong gubernatorial race in Mississippi or Tennessee. We just have not seen the value being placed on the South that is necessary,” he said.
That dynamic has also played out within the South, where Democratic candidates have found themselves competing against one another amid the redistricting battle. Pearson is facing state Sen. London Lamar, who was endorsed by retiring Rep. Steve Cohen.
Still, Pearson and his team say they are returning to the fundamentals of campaigning: knocking on doors, holding community events, planting yard signs, and speaking to voters about what’s happened to their district. He said he’s confident about his chances of winning the district, old map or new, because the issues facing voters did not disappear when Republicans remade the political terrain.
“They don't care about our community and our community's ability to have a voice, and that's sad and a tragedy in its own sense,” he said. “It is also igniting a power and a thirst for justice in our community that we haven't seen, felt, or experienced in a little while.”
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