Democrat Steve Cohen Ends Reelection Bid After Tennessee Redrew District Lines
Cohen said if the Democrat lawsuit against the state succeeds and the court restores his district, he would jump back into the race.
Longtime Tennessee Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen has ended his reelection bid just days after Tennessee passed its new Congressional map.
Cohen represented District 9 for 19 years.
The new map carves the Memphis district into three districts.
Cohen told the media from his congressional office:
This morning I announced 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. Last week, Tennessee Republicans silenced the Black vote here in Memphis to make Republican victories likely. We are still fighting, and if we prevail in the courts and the 9th District remains intact, I will remain a candidate and will proud to represent you for another two years. If not, it has been the honor of my life serving you, and you can count on my representation until my final day in office and beyond.”
Cohen and the Tennessee Democratic Party have sued over the new map, arguing “that changing the congressional maps months before a primary will cause chaos for voters ahead of 2026.”
If the Democrats succeed with the lawsuit and restore his district, Cohen said he would jump back into the race.
A judge will hold a hearing on May 20 and decide if the plaintiffs qualify for a temporary restraining order.
The ACLU also filed a lawsuit, claiming the new map violates the 14th and 15th Amendments and “that it’s an act of retaliation for protected expression and association in violation of the First Amendment.”
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Comments
No lose there
I’m surprised a majority-black district nominated a Jew in the first place.
Not to mention the elephant in the room.
He’s a good Democrat, and votes their way on everything, so they support him. He’s survived multiple primary challenges. Obviously the black Democrat voters of Memphis vote as Democrats, not as black people, which is exactly why they should be treated like all other Democrats in Tennessee.
Dude admits he can’t win a fair race. Whole lot of Dems in constructed districts looking over their shoulders now that they aren’t shielded from ouster due to positions the general public isn’t all in on. Another race baiter down in SC is about to say So Long and good riddance.
No. What he’s been thrust into is not a fair race. It’s rigged against Democrats, and it’s unfair, but it’s a 200+ year old tradition and the courts have said it’s lawful. But it is unfair and he can’t win, so why should he spend effort and resources on a futile run?
The only reason the Democrats in his district were protected until now from this unfair treatment, is that they happen to be black. Well, now SCOTUS has said that giving them such special protection because of their race is racist.
This shows the need to allow racial gerrymandering. It’s unconscionable to split the Black vote in Tennessee, so they can’t vote for Black representatives like this white guy. D’OH!
I’d disagree with it, but I’d have more respect if, at any time in the last 19 years, he dropped his campaign to allow a Black candidate to win. It’s almost like he doesn’t believe what he says about racial gerrymandering. Haha.
At least he’s acknowledging he has no interest in competing for votes and finding common ground.
Or running against a black woman!
Competing for votes how? It’s not a competition. All three districts are deliberately drawn to make it impossible for any Democrat to win, regardless of race. That’s unfair, but it’s legal. What was illegal was that until now black voters were protected from such unfairness, just because of their race. Now all TN Democrat voters are being treated the same as MA Republican voters, and the same as VA tried to do to its Republican voters.
It’s never been about voting for black representatives. That’s never been the issue and it’s dishonest to present it as if it were. The issue was always that state legislatures were required to give black voters special treatment, so that they could elect the representative of their choice, black or white. Now they’ve lost that special treatment, and are being shafted the same way that all other TN Democrats are shafted.
I’d like to announce that I am running for office as long as I am assured of winning, at least up until the time that I realize that I can’t win, though I reserve the right to jump back in if it appears, at any time in the future, that I will win. (In either case, I am keeping my campaign money.)
dems: if its not rigged
its not fair
dems: and this is why we counted the votes *our way* in 2020 and beyond…and before
Now you see why Elias and others went around suing so hard in 2020 and demanding mail in ballots, extended voting seasons and no verification.
Wow, not interested in even trying. Guess that pretty much tells you everything you need to know
DNC probably told him, we got no money for you, you want to run it’s all your own money. He realized that he couldn’t raise enough since he rarely had a serious challenge and Justin Pearson was going to run against him in the primary.
Nope. So long as the district was winnable by a Democrat, he had the money and the backing to run. But there’s no point in his wasting money and energy running in a district that’s been deliberately designed to make it impossible for any Democrat to win.
Pearson won’t run either, for the same reason. He’s got a good job in the state legislature; why should he throw it away on a futile run for congress? That’s assuming he doesn’t end up in prison for his antics in the state Capitol.
Pearson filed to run against Cohen in the primary going back to October 2025. Looking at a March NPR story Pearson was dominating Cohen in fundraising however Cohen did have more money in the bank. Thanks to nearly two decades in office and easy campaigns. As of this morning Pearson was still running for Tenn. 9.
Yeah, but he’ll withdraw, because making a futile run for a district that has been rigged so that it’s impossible for him to win would mean not running for his state district, which he’s won in the past and will probably win again if he runs. So he’d be out of a job, and for what? It makes no sense for him to keep running, just as it makes no sense for Cohen to do so. It would just be a waste of his own energy and other people’s money.
“Cohen represented District 9 for 19 years.”
Coincidentally, that’s 18 years, 364 days too long for this 🤡 to be in office.
Now that he’s fixin to retire, he’ll have all the time he could possibly need to eat KFC.
He lives or at least represents Memphasis and eats KFC. Something is definitely wrong with him.
Maybe he could get KFC to come out with a “Cohen Bucket”. All left wings and a$$holes.
“Last week, Tennessee Republicans silenced the Black vote here in Memphis to make Republican victories likely.”
Aw, cry me a river, Steve!
Hey — why don’t you move to Massachusetts?
ANYWHERE in Massachusetts — you wouldn’t even have to be careful!
Dude doesn’t want a reasonably competitive election and refuses to participate. On the flip side of ending racial gerrymandering to create ‘majority minority’ districts which pack minority constituents into one or two districts is the unpacking also created potential headaches for the remaining reps as the districts are reconfigured to absorb
the constituents from these districts. That’s why the 5GoP SC State Senators balked at redistricting. Their own gravy train is potentially at risk, probably not for the party but for their own political future v a more energetic challenger willing to go out and ask for votes. There’s been a sort of Faustian bargain between establishment GoP and d/prog to keep ‘majority minority’ districts b/c the establishment of both parties benefited.
Not MA. He’d be low democrat on the list and therefore not entitled to run, If he wants to carpetbag in NE he could consider NY, RI, VT, or NH, They all have history of carpetbaggers.
Nah, he’s got a DNC Union Card. Like Hillary’s, except his isn’t the platinum one.
Old KFC has thrown in the towel. In 19 years he had not much to show except KFC affinity.
He’s long been an obnoxious cretin so good riddance!
Our focus should be on the ACLU’s challenge. I haven’t read it, but I assume it has a chance to succeed: to stay and temporarily suspend Tennessee’s redistricting from taking effect.
I don’t see how.
The old district being “majority-minority” was represented for 2 decades by a white dude; no minority candidates succeed. Now the newly aligned districts break up that district, and that leaves the door open for those folks to be a “minority” to represent them. And the Dems sue to prevent this.
This is Babylon Bee territory.
I’ll be interest to see how ACLU gerrymanders their case to turn the de-ghettoizing into a violation of the 15th Amendment. As the new district provides, everyone regardless of race gets to vote.
Exactly. The Dems can no longer keep blacks on their political plantation. I hope there are.several conservative black republican that runs for those seats and wins so it can be shoved in to the hypocritical Dem faces
Any black Republican that wins, will not get the black vote, and will thus not represent black voters. That’s the essence of their argument; that black voters, unlike all other voters, are entitled to special treatment to protect their ability to elect someone to represent their interests, when no one else get such protection. Well, those days are over. If you’re a Democrat voter in a highly partisan Republican state, you’re going to get shafted regardless of your race. The legislature doesn’t care about your race, just about how you vote.
I’ll send him so conciliatory KFC from SoCal via slow UPS. Should be perfect when he gets it. Asshat.
Don’t forget to add your own secret blend of 16 grubs and spiders.
No, that would be illegal. But they didn’t do that. They silenced the Democrat vote to make Republican victories more likely; the fact that those Democrat voters happen to be black was irrelevant to their decision. They treated those black Democrat voters exactly the same way that they already treated white Democrat voters, with the courts’ blessing.
Until now the courts have said “You can only do that to white voters, but not to black ones”. Now SCOTUS finally held that that was racist, and districting decisions have to be made on a color-blind basis.
That’s not a legal argument. It’s an argument that should be addressed to the legislature, not to the courts. If the legislature wants to create chaos, that’s its privilege.
The first amendment violation is because it discriminates against Democrats?! SCOTUS has already ruled multiple times that that’s allowed. How do they distinguish this from every other gerrymandering case? As for the 14th and 15th amendments, SCOTUS has already said that districts are not only allowed to be colorblind, but must be.