Image Credit: Todd Warner for Tennessee / Facebook, Brent Taylor / Facebook & Canva
The Center Square [By Kim Jarrett] & Tennessee Conservative News Staff –
Just two hours after the Tennessee General Assembly passed bills redrawing the state’s congressional districts, Memphis state Sen. Brent Taylor said he would run in the newly configured 9th Congressional District. Several days later State Representative Todd Warner from Chapel Hill announced he will be running for the same seat.
Senator Taylor (R-Memphis-District 31), a state senator since 2022, can often be seen wearing a “Make Memphis Matter” hat. He supported a bill that allows the state to intervene in the Memphis-Shelby County School System and authorized the deployment of the National Guard.
“To make Memphis matter, we have to make Memphis safe,” Taylor said in a November interview with The Center Square.
U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty endorsed Taylor.
“My friend, Brent Taylor, will be a fearless conservative leader for Tennessee,” Blackburn said.
In an unexpected move, State Representative Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill-District 92) announced his own candidacy for the seat during an interview with the Patriot Punk Network on Sunday evening.
“My name’s going in the hat in the morning. Brent Taylor ain’t gonna win this race, Todd Warner’s gonna win this race, you mark my words,” he declared. “I don’t care if the whole establishment- he gets every endorsement it is, the only endorsement I need is the endorsement of the people of the 9th District, and I will have it.”
In his official announcement Monday, Warner reiterated, “The swamp can keep their endorsements. I’m running for the people who feel like nobody in Washington fights for them anymore,” and vows to run an “aggressive, grassroots, America first campaign.”
Candidates have until noon on Friday, May 15 to qualify for the August 6 primary election which appears to be turning into a very heated contest.
The new 9th Congressional District includes the southern part of Shelby County and runs south through Hardeman, McNairy, Hardin, Wayne, Lawrence, Giles, Marshall, Bedford, Moore and Lincoln counties, as well as parts of Williams and Maury counties, which are in the middle part of the state.
Gov. Bill Lee signed the redistricting bill shortly after it was passed.
Sen. Steve Cohen, currently representative of the 9th, has not indicated if he will run.
“Trump knows he has to rig the game to keep his majority in November. And the Tennessee GOP was willing to go along with it,” Cohen said in a social media post. “It’s shameful. Next stop is the courts.”
