Morning Digest: Longtime Rep. Steve Cohen will retire after GOP dismantles his district

Tennessee Republicans shattered majority-Black Memphis to turn every seat red

Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee. (Credit: Steve Cohen Facebook)

Leading Off

TN-09

Just ahead of Friday’s filing deadline, Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen announced he would not seek reelection after Republicans dismantled the majority-Black district he’s represented since 2007.

“This morning I made public my decision not to run in any of the three gerrymandered congressional districts carved out of the 9th District I have represented for more than 19 years,” he said in a statement. “The state General Assembly last week diluted the Black vote in thirds to make Republican victories likely.”

“Cases are pending that could restore the 9th District to its current contours until 2028 and, if we prevail, I will remain a candidate in the 9th, but that appears unlikely,” he added.

Since the early 1980s, Memphis had anchored a compact, predominantly Black district in Tennessee’s southwestern corner. As Cohen noted, though, the GOP’s new map carved the city into three almost perfectly equal parts, submerging Black voters in a trio of majority-white—and deeply conservative—congressional districts.

Cohen, who is Jewish and of Eastern European descent, may have seemed like an unlikely candidate to represent the 9th District, but he’d enjoyed a lengthy career in local politics before he first ran for Congress in 2006.

That year, Rep. Harold Ford Jr. had given up his post to wage an unsuccessful campaign for the Senate, opening the door for a new voice to represent a seat that had been in his family’s hands since 1975. (When Ford first won the seat in 1996, he succeeded his father, Harold Ford Sr.)

A large number of local politicians jumped into the race, many of them Black, but despite attacks over his race and religion, Cohen took first place in the Democratic primary with 31% of the vote. The New York Times noted afterwards that, during his long tenure in the legislature, Cohen “was known for being attentive to the needs of black constituents.”

Some Black leaders then sought to stop Cohen in the general election by rallying around Jake Ford, the brother of the outgoing congressman, but Cohen prevailed handily.

Immediately, though, there was talk that in a one-on-one race against a stronger Black candidate, Cohen could struggle, but he turned out to have far more staying power than his critics expected.

Well-established opponents again tried to make an issue of his ethnicity and his faith in his next two campaigns. One antisemitic ad from his 2008 rival, attorney Nikki Tinker, even prompted a condemnation from Barack Obama, but Cohen secured close to 80% of the vote, and then did so again in 2010 against former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton.

Future challenges went nowhere, and in his most recent primary, Cohen prevailed by a lopsided 74-18 margin over his nearest rival.

2026 was shaping up very differently, though. This time, Cohen drew a high-profile challenge from state Rep. Justin Pearson, a member of the “Tennessee Three” who was expelled from the legislature in 2023 for leading a protest in favor of gun safety regulations on the House floor.

Pearson soon reclaimed his seat in a special election, and along the way, he earned a national profile and massive financial support. The 31-year-old lawmaker also framed his campaign in entirely different terms compared to the many others who’d sought to unseat Cohen over the years, seizing the mantle of generational change.

Pearson recently said that he’d continue his bid despite the exceedingly long odds, but now, his long-awaited matchup against Cohen will not come to pass.

The GOP races to dismantle Black districts

Election Recaps

LA-Sen

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy not only lost renomination in Saturday’s Republican primary, but he also became the first elected senator to place third or worse in a primary in more than 80 years.

Rep. Julia Letlow, who has endorsements from Donald Trump and Gov. Jeff Landry, finished first with 45% of the vote, which was a few points below the majority she needed to win the GOP nomination outright. State Treasurer John Fleming edged out Cassidy, who became a conservative pariah when he voted to convict Trump following the Jan. 6 riots, 28-25 for the second spot in the June 27 runoff.

The senator was anything but an outcast before that fateful 2021 vote. Cassidy, a physician, rose to prominence in 2005 when he helped turn an abandoned Kmart into an emergency hospital to treat people impacted by Hurricane Katrina, and he won a spot in the state Senate the next year.

Cassidy in 2008 unseated Democratic Rep. Don Cazayoux, who had flipped a conservative U.S. House seat in a special election earlier that year, and he rose to even greater prominence in 2014 when he defeated Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu.

Cassidy easily won reelection in 2020, and he seemed set for a long career representing this heavily Republican state. But all that changed just weeks into his second term when he voted to convict Trump following the attack on the Capitol.

The senator responded to Trump’s 2024 comeback by trying to get back on MAGA’s good side, most notably by supplying a key vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services.

But while Cassidy hoped that his newfound obedience would at least deter Trump from endorsing one of his primary rivals, he got some dire news in January of this year when Trump publicly urged Letlow to run for the Senate and pledged his “Complete and Total Endorsement” if she did. Letlow quickly took Trump up on his offer, and Cassidy immediately became the underdog.

The incumbent and his allies tried to counter by spending huge amounts on commercials portraying Letlow as insufficiently conservative and praising Cassidy’s record, but it was far from enough to save him. A GOP strategist snarked to Politico, “He’s run a lot of ads, and the problem with his ads is he’s in them.”

While Cassidy hoped to at least advance to the second round, he’s instead now achieved the kind of historical distinction no one wants. The University of Minnesota’s Eric Ostermeier wrote in February that the last time an elected U.S. senator failed to earn at least second place in a primary was in 1944, when Arkansas Democrat Hattie Caraway finished fourth.

Cassidy is also now the first elected senator to lose his primary since 2012, when longtime Indiana Republican Richard Lugar lost to Richard Mourdock. Alabama Republican Luther Strange did go on to lose his special election primary to Roy Moore in 2017, but Strange had only been appointed to the seat earlier that year. (Both Murdock and Moore went on to lose their respective general elections.)

The winner of next month’s Letlow-Fleming runoff will be well-positioned to prevail in November in this conservative state. Democrats, though, are hoping that Trump’s sagging approval ratings, Republican infighting, and a backlash against Landry’s plan to rapidly dismantle one of the state’s two majority-Black congressional districts will give them the chance to put up a fight.

Farmer Jamie Davis, a former member of legislative body for rural Tensas Parish, came close to winning the three-way Democratic primary outright by taking 47% of the vote. Davis will take on businessman Gary Crockett, who narrowly edged out the third Democrat for the other runoff spot.

LA Ballot

Louisiana voters overwhelmingly rejected all five proposed constitutional amendments the Republican-dominated state legislature placed on the ballot. The results represented a big setback for Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, whose political group deployed $1 million on a campaign to pass four of the amendments.

The election took place shortly after Landry responded to the U.S. Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act by abruptly canceling the state’s U.S. House primaries and calling for a new congressional map.

“All of those things are opening people’s eyes to the voter suppression efforts that have been taking place in this state for a long time,” Sarah Omojola, a member of the Liberty and Dignity Coalition, told the Louisiana Illuminator of the call to vote “No on All.”

Landry, for his part, hoped to avoid a repeat of the elections of March of last year where voters resoundingly opposed all four amendments he was promoting.

The foursome he pushed this time consisted of: a plan to empower the legislature to remove civil service protections from some state posts; an amendment to form a school district in the newly formed city of St. George; a proposal to fund a pay increase for teachers by “paying down debt of the Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana,” and an amendment to give local authorities more power to reduce taxes for businesses.

Voters, though, weren’t in the mood to back any of them. The margins of defeat ranged from 58-42 for the plan concerning teacher pay to 78-22 for the civil service proposal.

Louisianans were also presented with a fifth and final amendment to raise the mandatory retirement ages for judges from 70 to 75. Landry’s team left this one to fend for itself, but it still failed 77-23.

Redistricting Roundup

VA Redistricting

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday declined to stay a ruling by the Virginia Supreme Court that invalidated an April vote that would have allowed the state to adopt a new congressional map this year.

Governors

CA-Gov

The new Democratic frontrunner in California’s volatile gubernatorial primary is now seeing a barrage of ads both attacking and supporting him, while for the first time, Democrats are openly elevating the leading Republican to avoid getting locked out of the general election.

An outfit funded by real estate developers and building trade unions called California Is Not For Sale had been spending heavily to thwart billionaire investor Tom Steyer, and now its latest ads also seek to boost Xavier Becerra, Joe Biden’s former secretary of Health and Human Services.

A new spot from the group alternates between praise for Becerra (he “protected California’s air and water”) and slams on Steyer (he “profited off caging immigrants”). According to AdImpact, California Is Not For Sale has deployed $22 million on its ad campaign to date.

The ultra-wealthy Steyer has hit back with $7 million in negative ads going after his surging opponent, according to Politico, but it’s Becerra who may be his own worst enemy.

With the spotlight on him in recent weeks, Becerra has repeatedly stumbled on the campaign trail. In one clip that went viral, he awkwardly sought to dictate the terms of an interview with KTLA reporter Annie Rose Ramos while the camera was already rolling.

Becerra: By the way, this is a profile piece, this is not a gotcha piece, right?

Ramos: Well, look, I think these questions are fair. It’s in order to learn about you as a candidate.

Becerra: So long it’s about the profile.

Ramos: I don’t know how you define profile, but I’d like to begin the interview.

Becerra: The way I describe profile is you talk about all the things that I’ve done, things I want to do, and along with some tough questions. But not only tough questions.

Meanwhile, Politico reports that the Democratic Governors Association has been sending out mailers describing former Fox News host Steve Hilton as “a fierce conservative.”

There’s no word yet on how much the DGA is spending, but Democrats would be delighted to see Hilton, who has Donald Trump’s endorsement, peel away Republican voters from his chief GOP rival, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. The more Bianco fades, the less chance there is that the two Republicans will advance to November.

Recent polling confirms that those fears are much less acute than they once were. FiftyPlusOne’s average of public polls finds Hilton and Becerra in the top two slots, with 20% and 19% respectively, while Steyer is in third with 15%. Bianco, who led in some earlier polling, has since fallen to fourth place with 13%.

CT-Gov

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont overwhelmingly won the state Democratic Party’s endorsement at Saturday’s convention, but his primary opponent did more than well enough to earn a spot on the August primary ballot.

Lamont outpaced state Rep. Josh Elliott, who is challenging the governor from the left, 75-25 at the gathering. Elliott, though, only needed to win 15% of the delegates’ support to ensure himself a place on the ballot and thus avoid the difficult and expensive task of collecting signatures.

The Republican nomination battle, by contrast, essentially came to an end on Saturday when state Sen. Ryan Fazio took 92% at his convention. Former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, who was Fazio’s only remaining intraparty opponent, quickly announced she was endorsing Fazio rather than forging ahead.

House

AL-01, AL-02

Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures tells the Alabama Daily News that he could seek reelection in the 1st Congressional District after Republicans passed legislation to implement a new map that dismantles Figures’ current district, the 2nd.

“When we look at the potential district, it’s certainly a district that is certainly not in the unwinnable category,” Figures said, referring to the 1st District. “It’s a district that creates a legitimate opportunity for an African American candidate to be elected.”

The new 1st District contains Figures’ hometown of Mobile, but otherwise, it’s extremely rough turf for any Democrat. According to data from the Redistricting Data Hub uploaded to Dave’s Redistricting App, it would have voted for Donald Trump by a daunting 67-31 margin, making it far redder than any other district held by a Democrat.

It’s also home to a voting-age population that’s just a quarter Black. The 2nd, meanwhile, is 40% Black by this same metric and would have backed Trump by a much smaller—but still difficult—57-42 spread.

At the same time, a second Republican who’d been running for Congress in southern Alabama is headed in the other direction. Army veteran Josh McKee, who had been seeking the open 1st District, instead said last week that he’d switch over to the 2nd. Previously, state Rep. Rhett Marques made the same move.

CA-32

A group called the New Era Leadership PAC is spending $600,000 on ads promoting former Biden administration official Jake Levine in his quest to unseat Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman, Politico reports.

The PAC’s new ad slams the 71-year-old Sherman for what it argues is a meager record during his 30 years in Congress, saying his time “has come and gone.” By contrast, it argues that Levine, 42, has “the energy to actually get things done” and will “[m]ake it more affordable to live in Los Angeles with a lot more housing and a lot lower costs.”

The two are facing off in California’s safely blue 32nd District and could wind up both advancing to the November general election.

FL-14

Republican state Rep. Kevin Steele has joined the race to take on longtime Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor in Florida’s 14th District, which the new GOP just made considerably redder.

Steele, who is personally wealthy, is the second notable Republican to enter the contest after Bea Valenti, a former aide to Florida Sen. Ashley Moody. Earlier in the cycle, he ran for the post of chief financial officer, a statewide role that merges the jobs of comptroller and treasurer, but dropped out in February.

MI-10

Election officials have concluded that former prosecutor Robert Lulgjuraj submitted enough signatures to make the August GOP primary ballot in Michigan’s 10th District after rivals filed challenges to his submissions.

Examiners rejected 108 signatures but determined that Lulgjuraj had submitted 1,573 acceptable ones, well above the 1,000 needed. Lulgjuraj’s top opponents for the Republican nomination are attorney Justin Kirk and Army National Guard member Mike Bouchard, while Democrats also have a three-way primary for the swing 10th District.

NJ-07

Republicans are growing increasingly paranoid about Rep. Tom Kean’s disappearance while explanations for his vanishing act have grown increasingly weird.

Kean hasn’t been seen in public since last casting votes in Congress on March 5. The same spokesperson, Harrison Neely, keeps saying he’ll be back “soon” but hasn’t offered any details about the “personal medical issue” that’s supposedly keeping the congressman out of sight.

The extended absence and lack of information now have House Republicans worried about Kean’s ability to run a competitive reelection campaign this fall in a swingy district that Democrats are hungry to flip.

As one anonymous GOP aide told Axios last week, “This is about more than one person at this point; it’s about the vote and the ability to hold the seat in the fall. The answer can’t simply be ‘trust us’ when nothing about their behavior has inspired trust.”

New comments from Kean’s chief of staff, Dan Scharfenberger, did nothing to restore that broken trust. When asked by the New York Times why Kean had dropped out of sight, he said, “There’s no cameras where Tom is.” He offered no further details.

Kean’s father, former Gov. Tom Kean Sr., was just as opaque.

“It took a real illness to knock him out,” he told CNN. “This won’t linger. It’s not some kind of disease that’s going to incapacitate him in the future. The consensus is that he will be 100% OK.” He then refused to say anything more about his son’s condition.

Ballot Measures

Miami, FL Ballot

Voters in Miami will decide in August whether they want to move city elections to even-numbered years, though even if they approve the change, the switchover wouldn’t take place until 2034.

Last year, the City Commission sought to move elections from odd years to even through legislation, but the effort was shot down in the courts. Because of that defeat, the Commission opted to place a referendum before voters this summer that would instead amend the city charter.

OK Ballot

Oklahoma Republicans appear to have given up on a plan to repeal an amendment mandating the state expand its Medicaid program, though they could potentially bring it up again in a special session.

Lawmakers adjourned for the year on Thursday without passing a pair of amendments that Republican leaders had long advocated: one that would allow them to roll back the expansion entirely, and another that would have authorized them to stop paying for it if the federal government ever ceased to cover at least 90% of the costs.

Originally, Republicans wanted to place the first measure on the ballot this summer, then place the second proposal before voters in November only if they rejected the first one. That plan, however, was derailed when GOP hardliners united with Democrats earlier this month to block a summertime vote.

Republican leadership then sought to combine the two amendments into one, which would then appear on the fall ballot. However, the legislature never managed to approve that package before wrapping up its regular session.

Following adjournment, KOCO reported that House Speaker Kyle Hilbert “hinted at the possibility of a special session,” but Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton, his counterpart in the upper chamber, was skeptical of the idea.

Prosecutors & Sheriffs

Douglas County, NE Attorney

Election officials confirmed Omaha prosecutor Makayla Danner as the winner of Tuesday’s Democratic primary in the race for Douglas County attorney when they released updated vote tallies on Friday.

Danner led her opponent, former county prosecutor Amy Jacobsen, by a 51-49 margin following election night, but as final ballots were counted, her edge grew to 52-47.

Danner will face incumbent Don Kleine, a former Democrat who joined the GOP in 2020 after his old party passed a resolution charging him with having “perpetuated white supremacy.” That condemnation came after he refused to charge a white bar owner, Jake Gardner, who shot and killed a Black man, James Scurlock, during a protest over the murder of George Floyd.

Poll Pile

• FL-Sen: Cherry Communications for the Florida Chamber of Commerce:

  • Ashley Moody (R-inc): 48, Alex Vindman (D): 40.

• FL-Gov: Cherry:

  • Byron Donalds (R): 47, David Jolly (D): 39.

  • Donalds (R): 48, Jerry Demings (D): 39.

• OR-Gov: Hoffman Research Group for Chris Dudley:

  • Chris Dudley (R): 48, Tina Kotek (D-inc): 44.

  • Christine Drazan (R): 45, Kotek (D-inc): 45.

• CA-48 (top-two primary): SurveyUSA for KGTV and the San Diego Union-Tribune:

  • Jim Desmond (R): 29, Kevin Patrick O’Neil (R): 10, Ammar Campa-Najjar (D): 9, Marni Von Wilpert (D): 9, Brandon Riker (D): 6, other candidates 4% or less.

  • April: Desmond (R): 25, O’Neil (R): 13, Campa-Najjar (D): 12, von Wilpert (D): 6, Mike Schaefer (D): 6.

• Harris County, TX Judge (D): University of Houston:

  • Annise Parker: 54, Letitia Plummer: 36.

Editor’s Note: This Digest incorrectly identified how long Harold Ford Sr. represented Tennessee’s 9th District. Ford represented the seat from 1975 to 1997, not 1983 to 1997.

This Digest also incorrectly identified Justin Pearson’s age. He is 31, not 30.