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Tennessee state Rep. Gloria Johnson has announced her Democratic candidacy for the U.S. Senate, setting up a potential race against the Republican incumbent, Marsha Blackburn, if Johnson makes it through her primary.
Johnson achieved political stardom this year as one of the three Tennessee lawmakers targeted by conservative colleagues after they protested on the state House floor against gun violence, days after a shooter massacred six people at a Nashville elementary school. Johnson — a white woman — was spared expulsion from the Legislature, unlike her two Black colleagues. But she has been a vocal ally to her since-reinstated colleagues, and her activism has given her prominence on the national stage.
Johnson’s campaign announcement focused on gun violence, abortion rights and defeating right-wing special interest groups.
On Tuesday morning, Johnson held her first campaign rally outside of a Knoxville high school where she once taught. She recalled the traumatic day in 2008 when a student was killed in a shooting at the school, Central High.
Johnson said Blackburn opposes gun safety legislation because the GOP senator “gets millions from the NRA,” adding that it symbolizes someone who’s “working for corporations, billionaires and special interests.”
She also mocked Blackburn for recently pushing an “outrageous” conspiracy theory about the Biden administration wanting to ban barbecue grills. (It wasn’t the first time she has dragged Blackburn for this claim.)
“Folks, nobody loves grillin’ out more than me,” she said.
Johnson acknowledged that she’ll need a good ground game to win in a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since Al Gore was re-elected in 1990.
“It’s an uphill battle — there’s no question,” she said, but Blackburn’s “last race was about 10 points’ difference. We can get that 10 points.”
Johnson said the overturning of Roe v. Wade and a deluge of gun violence are among the reasons why the political winds could be shifting.
Johnson said the overturning of Roe v. Wade and a deluge of gun violence are among the reasons why the political winds could be shifting.
But to win, she likely will need a wave of diverse voters to dislodge the conservative power structure that has been entrenched in Tennessee for decades. Johnson acknowledged this in her remarks Tuesday.
“We are working hard to build a multiracial, multigenerational coalition, because that is how we win,” she said, adding that “they will try to divide us by race, they will try to divide us by age, they will try to divide us by gender, but we are building a strong coalition.”