The announcement of a Democratic campaign to unseat Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) is seemingly imminent.
The prospective bid for office is from state Sen. Gloria Johnson (D), currently serving in the Tennessee state legislature. Johnson was among the three members infamously threatened with expulsion after they expressed support inside the chamber for demonstrators demanding action against gun violence. It was the very city in which the Tennessee state Capitol is located (Nashville) where six victims, including three young children, were killed at a private school in yet another mass shooting.
Johnson is publicizing a “special announcement” for this coming Tuesday, and media reports have previously asserted she was working towards a Senate campaign. The pre-announcement bulletin originating with Johnson’s camp says the state legislator will travel to the Tennessee cities of Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis.
The last time that Tennessee had a Democratic Senator was when Bill Sasser left office in 1995, and the last time the state went to a Democrat in the general election of a presidential race was that same decade, when Bill Clinton was on the ballot. Blackburn won her current term by a margin of nearly 11 percent over Phil Bredesen, a former Democratic governor of Tennessee.
In the Senate, Blackburn has quickly become known for her involvement with substantially right-wing causes. A recent post from her official account on X (the platform formerly called Twitter) gets the message across: “Is it a coincidence that Trump has been charged every time new information about Hunter’s businesses dealings has come to light?” There is no demonstrable, direct relationship between the four criminal cases that have emerged implicating the former president and the allegations of corrupt business dealings naming Hunter Biden, a son of the current commander-in-chief. Though some in Trump’s corner have, for instance, tried to tie the former president’s charges to the older Biden, nothing substantiates the idea that the Democratic leader has actually gotten directly involved.
