His district was gerrymandered away in three days, yet he remains in the race.

(SeaPRwire) –   Justin Pearson had spent months on the campaign trail, vying to represent his congressional district in the Memphis area. Then, Tennessee Republican lawmakers eliminated that district entirely over the span of just three days.

Approved during a special legislative session and signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee on May 7, the new redistricting map split the state’s only majority-Black district into three separate segments, which were then incorporated into neighboring Republican-leaning districts. Per an analysis from nonpartisan organization the Cook Political Report, the move transformed the 9th District from a reliably Democratic seat into a Republican stronghold with a projected nine-point partisan advantage.

For Pearson, the intent behind the move was impossible to miss. Months before voters were set to cast their ballots, a Memphis community that had long held meaningful political power was being stripped of its dedicated representation.

“It’s a very visceral, painful experience to see a community that I’ve been running to represent being changed so drastically and so significantly, to try and steal an election for the president of the United States,” Pearson told TIME in a phone interview conducted from Memphis.

The Democratic state representative, who launched his campaign back in October, said he was not caught off guard by Tennessee legislators’ move to redraw congressional boundaries just days after President Trump spoke with Gov. Lee about securing more Republican seats in Congress ahead of the midterm elections. He did, however, find the pace of the process striking.

The map was officially enacted three months before Tennessee’s primary election, making it the first gerrymandered district map put in place following the Supreme Court ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act. Pearson noted that, even as a sitting state representative, he was not able to see how the changes would impact the seat he was running for until the second-to-last day of the special session.

Defiance has long been a defining trait of Pearson. In 2023, Pearson and his colleague state Rep. Justin Jones were expelled from the legislature for leading a protest inside the state Capitol demanding gun reform in the wake of a deadly school shooting in Nashville. Both lawmakers were unanimously reinstated after their expulsions drew widespread condemnation as anti-democratic overreach.

“I don’t come from a family of quitters. This community did not build me and make me a quitter. We are fighters. We’re fighters for justice, for equality, for fairness, for our democracy, and for what every person needs and deserves,” he stated.

Shortly after the state legislature announced the newly passed congressional map, Pearson joined hundreds of civil rights leaders, fellow lawmakers, and voters to protest the gerrymandering. Not long after, he was stripped of all his committee assignments in the legislature.

Tennessee Republicans have maintained that eliminating the state’s last remaining Democratic congressional district was a justified move following the Supreme Court ruling. Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who is running for state governor, proposed a 9-0 Republican map on X in late April, saying that keeping Tennessee under GOP control is “essential” to cement Trump’s policy agenda.

“The court sided with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision for a colorblind society and said that racial preferencing doesn’t belong in our elections, just as it doesn’t belong in college admissions,” Sen. Blackburn wrote in an op-ed explaining her proposal.

Pearson’s campaign is unfolding against a rapidly shifting national political landscape in the lead-up to November’s elections. As of 2025, eight states have revised their congressional maps, while Alabama and Louisiana are also in the process of redrawing their own. According to the latest nonpartisan analysis by the University of Virginia Center for Politics, Republicans could gain as many as 10 additional seats from the new maps being drafted across the country.

For Pearson, the rapid speed of the redistricting push reflects how quickly racist policies are being deployed to disenfranchise Black voters in the U.S., particularly in the South.

“It has not deterred us from what we are doing. It has not deterred us from what we believe is necessary and is possible, even in a district that they’ve cracked and tried to silence our voices,” he added.

With fewer than 90 days remaining before the primary election, Pearson is now running in the newly redrawn district that extends from the Memphis metropolitan area into rural parts of Tennessee.

The map is also facing ongoing legal challenges. On Wednesday, a federal judge rejected a request from a group of Black voters represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to block the map from taking effect before the primary election. The voters are expected to appeal the decision, adding further uncertainty around the district lines.

“I’ve even had Republicans come up to me and say, ‘what they’re doing is unfair. What they’re doing is wrong. They’re trying to cheat to win instead of winning over people with their ideas,’” Pearson said. He also noted that during the special session, Republicans repealed a law requiring voters to be notified by mail when their districts change, leaving many voters he has met on the campaign trail unaware that they now live in a redrawn district.

“This has been a very chaotic and opaque process. A lot of people know that something is going on, but too few really know the consequences of what it means for them,” he explained.

Pearson, who continues to receive endorsements from progressive lawmakers across the country, has called on the national political establishment to put more resources into the South.

“What it cost some folks to run for Congress in California would be the cost of a strong gubernatorial race in Mississippi or Tennessee. We just have not seen the value being placed on the South that is necessary,” he said.

This same dynamic has played out across the South, where Democratic candidates have found themselves running against one another amid widespread redistricting battles. Pearson is competing against state Sen. London Lamar, who has received the endorsement of retiring Rep. Steve Cohen.

Even so, Pearson and his campaign team say they are focusing on the core basics of campaigning: knocking on doors, hosting community events, putting up yard signs, and speaking to voters about what has happened to their district. He said he is confident about his odds of winning the district, old map or new, because the issues facing voters did not disappear when Republicans redrew the political landscape.

“They don’t care about our community and our community’s ability to have a voice, and that’s sad and a tragedy in its own sense,” he said. “It is also igniting a power and a thirst for justice in our community that we haven’t seen, felt, or experienced in a little while.”