The Tennessee state representative explains why he is facing off against Steve Cohen to be the Democratic nominee to represent the Memphis area in Washington.
Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson joins the Tennessee delegation as they cast their votes during the Ceremonial Roll Call of States on the second day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 20, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
With much of the political press focused on the insurgent candidacy of Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist running to be mayor of New York, another young, left-reform candidate has announced an underdog primary challenge in an unlikely-seeming jurisdiction: Tennessee’s Ninth Congressional District. Justin Pearson, a state representative, will face off against the longtime incumbent representative, Steve Cohen, to become the Democratic Party’s nominee to represent the district, which is anchored by Memphis, a blue stronghold in a red state.
Pearson, a Memphis native, is collaborating with the national progressive groups Justice Democrats and Leaders We Deserve to help counter the advantages of incumbency and big-ticket fundraising that Cohen enjoys. “We’re going to have to run our own race,” Pearson told me. “And it’s going to be a great people-powered campaign for justice. I’m not taking any corp money, and I know Cohen has millions in corporate donations. I believe in the power of people, and we’re counting on the people to organize and galvanize a campaign to win this race.”
Pearson came to national prominence in 2023 as part of the “Tennessee Three”—a group of state lawmakers disciplined by the legislature for hosting protesters in the chamber demanding stricter gun-control measures in the wake of a Nashville school shooting. Still, as Pearson acknowledges, this will be a challenge. Cohen has served for two decades, cruised to reelection with 71 percent of the vote in 2024, and has more than $1.5 million in cash on hand. Pearson and his backers are banking on being able to harness the growing discontent with Democrats in Congress, who clock abysmal levels of support in opinion polls, and are viewed by the party’s base as risk averse and complacent in the face of the MAGA seizure of authoritarian power.
Pearson isn’t alone in running against establishment Democrats. Just before his announcement, Maine state auditor Matt Dunlop announced his campaign to primary Democratic Representative Jared Golden, who represents the state’s Second Congressional District, also on the grounds that Golden—a center-right lawmaker who cast the only Democratic vote for the Republican plan to fund the government at the end of September—doesn’t meet voters’ demand for “someone who’s going to fight for them for the things they care about.”
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While Memphis is in every sense a long way from rural Maine, Pearson’s campaign will hit the same themes. “I think every Democrat in Tennessee wants to have a candidate who’s going to stand up for the community and its values, and fight back against Donald Trump and the affordability crisis for working people,” Pearson said. “I’m a person who knows about that struggle because I’ve lived it.” He stresses that working-class background against Cohen’s status as a veteran Capitol Hill insider who recently purchased a condominium in Washington. “You know the fight to make one job be enough,” Pearson says in the ad announcing his candidacy, which endorses Medicare for All and cites his successful opposition to a multibillion-dollar pipeline project in the district and his 2023 expulsion from the legislature.
Pearson also told me that he would diverge from Cohen’s stalwart support for Israel in Congress. “What’s happening in Gaza is heartbreaking,” he said. “As we recognize the two-year anniversary of the war, we have to take a moment and remember the horrible assault on Israelis by Hamas—but we also have to remember that all human life has value and what’s happening to the Palestinians. Netanyahu’s government is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.”
He insisted that Congress has to do more to stop the tragedy in Gaza while helping Americans at home: “I’m not going to be supporting the sending of billions in bombs overseas, when people in my own district—their houses are sinking, and their kids are hungry. It always amazes me that America will always find billions and billions to fight wars, but won’t do anything like that to fight poverty and hunger.”
Pearson is generally reluctant to harp on the liabilities of his primary opponent. “I’m grateful for Steve Cohen’s service, and his 20-plus years in Congress. I’m not making his age an issue in this campaign. What I’m saying is that a lot has changed in the last 42 years.”
Justice Democrats, in the tradition of campaign advocacy groups, goes after Cohen more directly in its statement endorsing Pearson. “Over the years, Cohen has embraced the model of the average absentee Congressman,” it reads in part. “He rarely shows up for the community, campaigns for support, or holds town halls—taking incumbency in Tennessee’s only Democratic district for granted at the expense of his own voters—while still cashing checks from corporate PACs. His lack of engaged and active representation has lowered expectations Memphians have for their Congressperson, further eroding civil engagement and inspiring political cynicism in a working-class community already under attack on all sides.”
Another challenge for Pearson is to find a way for his campaign to gain traction among the district’s rural voters. He argues that his core policy platform—which focuses on healthcare access, affordable housing, and environmental protection—addresses the concerns of both rural and urban voters, while also noting that Trump’s tariffs are a huge cost-of-living issue for farmers in his district. “Look, people are fomenting culture wars in order to take attention away from these bread-and-butter issues; it’s all part of the plan to give more power to billionaires,” he said. “So I tell rural voters, ‘These tariffs aren’t designed to help you.’ I talked to soybean farmers in the district two days ago, and they’re telling me China is the one benefiting from the tariffs.”
For all the uphill challenges facing his campaign, from Cohen’s well-resourced campaign warchest to pushback from centrist Democrats, Pearson does enjoy one advantage: For some unfathomable reason, Cohen’s reelection slogan is “Keep Goin’ with Cohen!,” an imperative that echoes the cringey reelection ads featured in the 1997 Hollywood political satire Wag the Dog; Pearson has already cited it in the press release announcing his candidacy, saying, “For too long, voters have been told to ‘keep going’ with the same leadership and the same outcomes.” In conversation, he laughed and added, “It’s like, ‘Keep going to where?’ In our district, one in three kids is in poverty, one in five adults is in poverty, and our democracy is crumbling.”