Memphis, Tennessee - Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson won his Democratic congressional primary on Thursday in a race dramatically reshaped by Republican redistricting.

Pearson easily won the primary to represent Tennessee's ninth congressional district with 65.8% of the vote, defeating fellow Democrats London Lamar (24.2%), M. LaTroy A-Williams (6.8%), and Jim Torino (3.2%), according to the Associated Press.

The 31-year-old lawmaker made national headlines in April 2023 when he and fellow Representative Justin Jones, both of whom are Black, were expelled by Republicans after they led a protest for gun reform in the state Capitol. Fellow Democrat Gloria Johnson, who is white, narrowly survived her expulsion vote, sparking accusations of racial discrimination in the process.

Both Pearson and Jones were reinstated on an interim basis before winning special elections later that year to hold on to their seats.

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Pearson announced in October 2025 that he would run for Congress. Since that time, Tennessee's ninth congressional district has been heavily redistricted in favor of Republicans, diluting Black voting power and presenting a steep battle for the Democratic nominee come November.

"On this day, around this time, 61 years ago, August 6, 1965, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Reverend Ralph Abernathy, SNCC activist John Lewis, activist who would later become a US congressman, and Rosa Parks stood behind President Lyndon Baines Johnson as he signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965," Pearson said on Tuesday.

"Today, 61 years ago that happened, and here we are 61 years later and that same Voting Rights Act has been surgically undermined by the Supreme Court of the United States, the Tennessee legislature, the governor, and the current president of the United States by separating Memphis and Shelby County, the state's only majority-Black congressional district at that time, into thirds."

Pearson warned, "The political dilution and deprivation of our rights is happening in our lifetime. It's a blatant attempt to keep people like us out of power and an attempt to make us quit."

"But tonight, we one step closer to Washington DC," he added to cheers and applause.

Pearson will now go head to head with Republican nominee and State Senator Brent Taylor in the general election on November 3.