By David W. Marshall
(Trice Edney Wire) – Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones is starting to sound the alarm that the Democratic Party should not abandon the Deep South. Black lawmakers and activists across the Deep South argue they have been left behind by the Democratic Party to fight on their own. They point to years when the Democratic Party apparatus is systematically underfunding local organizations while Congressional leadership turns its focus to key battleground districts that could ultimately give them control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
“Folks who lead our party go to swing states like North Carolina and Georgia, but states like Mississippi and Tennessee and Alabama and South Carolina are really neglected and are really forgotten and are really treated as if it is inevitable that we’ll always stay in such systems of what I call apartheid type of politics,” said Jones. The feeling of neglect is negatively adding to what lawmakers are calling a crisis for Black representation.
In March 2023, Jones was thrust into the national spotlight when he joined fellow state Reps. Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson to become known as the “Tennessee Three.” The group of legislators supported gun-safety demonstrators in the House chamber after the Covenant School shooting in Nashville. Pearson, who represents the Memphis-area House District 86, recently won the Democratic primary for U.S. House for Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District. Pearson has an uphill battle since Tennessee Republicans redrew the congressional map soon after the Louisiana v. Callais Supreme Court decision.
Previously, the 9th District largely kept Memphis together and was a majority-Black, strongly Democratic district represented by Democrat Steve Cohen. The new map divides Memphis between three districts that extend into more rural, white Republican-leaning areas. Cohen chose not to run under the new configuration. The Tennessee legislature, through means of partisan and racial gerrymandering, took what was a reliable Democratic seat and made it into a Republican-leaning district. The new statewide map is now designed to give the Republicans an electoral advantage in all nine of Tennessee’s U.S. House districts. Going back to Rep. Jones’ point, states like Tennessee cannot be an afterthought to the national Democratic Party. When I think about Rep. Pearson as a candidate running in a Republican district, one person comes to mind: former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
In 1998, Tom Vilsack was elected Iowa’s first Democratic governor in more than 30 years, and was re-elected to a second term in 2002. As governor, he worked with schools, medical providers, businesses, faith-based organizations, and other entities to expand healthcare coverage to more than 90,000 previously uninsured children. He served as Secretary of Agriculture during the Obama administration and again during the Biden administration. He stands out because he came from a rural state and he knew the concerns of rural America. He constantly told Democrats not to ignore rural voters.
As Agriculture Secretary, Vilsack had urged Hillary Clinton’s campaign to shore up rural outreach, multiple sources said. The Clinton campaign didn’t think it needed rural voters, which was seen as a shrinking population that was reliably Republican. The campaign never named a rural council, as Obama did in 2008 and 2012. It also didn’t build a robust rural-dedicated campaign infrastructure. The rural voting bloc turned out to be formidable. “Hillary lost rural America 3 to 1,” said one Democratic insider. “If she had lost rural America 2 to 1, it would have broken differently.” Vilsack’s message and warning to Democrats still stands true today. Pearson and other Democrats need an effective rural strategy that resonates with farmers who are frustrated with tariffs, damaging trade policies, inflation, the impact of the Iran War, and cuts to federal farm programs. U.S. farm debt has reached historic levels.
In February 2026, the American Farm Bureau Federation released a report that substantiated what many farmers and agriculture economists already knew: We are experiencing a new farm crisis. The report found that Chapter 12 family farm bankruptcies surged by 46% in 2025. And let’s not forget there is a growing food crisis due to President Trump’s cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
According to former Treasury advisor Steve Rattner, who shared data from the USDA showing that participation in SNAP had plunged by 5 million people over the course of Trump’s second term. “Over 5 million low-income Americans–including 1.5 million children–have lost access to food assistance due to Trump’s SNAP cuts last year,” Rattner explained. “Most of the hardest hit states are traditionally Republican, resulting in growing hunger crises in states like Arizona. While Tennessee has created nine congressional districts of Republican domination, this could be a defining moment for Democrats despite the changing electoral landscape.
A significant opportunity now exists in Tennessee’s 9th Congressional race to start reversing this domination or “apartheid type of politics,” as Rep. Jones described. This could be done by addressing non-partisan, quality -of-life issues like the burgeoning farm debt crisis and food insecurity, which are hitting Republican-held districts hardest. A candidate like Justin Pearson, who is a passionate, eloquent orator and charismatic, can succeed not by being a traditional Democrat, but by proving a young, Black leader can effectively represent the survival interests of white, rural voters who feel equally abandoned.
David W. Marshall is the founder of the faith-based organization, TRB: The Reconciled Body, and author of the book God Bless Our Divided America.
