Democratic state Rep. Justin J. Pearson conceded the race to represent Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District Wednesday after coming in roughly 1.1 percent behind his Republican opponent.
State Sen. Brent Taylor tallied roughly 2,500 more votes than Pearson in a district redrawn to give Republicans their best chance at flipping the longtime Democratic seat that for decades encompassed Shelby County.
The Associated Press has yet to call the race as of 4:20 p.m. Wednesday.
As the Tennessee Secretary of State finalized the race’s unofficial results late Tuesday night, Pearson told a crowd of supporters at the New Direction Christian Church’s Power Center in Hickory Hill that he would wait until all ballots were counted.
Supporters had waited for more than three hours, refreshing results pages with bated breath, at times erupting in cheers when Pearson pulled ahead in the district designed by Tennessee Republicans for a Democratic loss.
Taylor claimed victory just after 11 p.m.
(Photo by Brad Vest for Tennessee Lookout)
“What I will tell you, without a shadow of a single doubt, is that together we changed history,” Pearson told supporters in his election night speech. “Tennessee, and Tennessee politics, will never be the same again. Together, we have made history in a district that they drew to gerrymander us into oblivion.”
Pearson will continue to serve Memphis in his role as District 86’s state representative.
In a Wednesday statement, Pearson said his campaign had accomplished what he set out to do.
“Every single county in our district swung between 10 and 30 points toward Democrats, inspired by our vision to get big money corruption out of politics, stop billionaires from building toxic data centers in our backyards, and take on politics as usual in both parties,” Pearson stated.
“For the first time in decades, many people feel seen and believe Tennessee can be changed for the better,” he stated. “And we all learned that we have more in common than we could have ever imagined.”
Pearson secured about 85 percent of the vote in the redrawn district’s portion of Shelby County, and nearly 55% of the vote in a sliver of Rutherford County in Middle Tennessee, according to results data compiled by the Associated Press. While Taylor prevailed in rural West and Middle Tennessee counties, Pearson still claimed double-digit percentages in each. In the 9th District’s portion of Williamson County, a Republican stronghold, 38.1 percent of the votes went to Pearson compared to Taylor’s 60.4 percent.
