Tennessee Needs You to be Courageous to Step Up and Run
Future901 spent a lot of time and effort raising money for state candidates to run in contested races in 2024. Democratic candidates in many of the major swing districts in Tennessee had the money they needed to win. For a state that is historically neglected by the national party, our biggest problem wasn’t money last cycle.
Our biggest problem was courage.
There were a lot of things to be disappointed about for our state going overwhelmingly in the direction that it did. However, for those in the trenches, it wasn’t that surprising. The cake had been baked a long time before Trump romped to victory in November. We lost as soon as the Democratic Party failed to field candidates in dozens of House and Senate districts across the state. That is to say nothing of all about the municipal and county races that went unopposed. In race after race, we conceded battles before they began.
Instead, we focused on a handful of swing districts. Here in West Tennessee, in House District 97, we had a great candidate, Jesse Huseth, who ran an excellent race. He exceeded all of his fundraising and campaign targets. He still lost. There are a lot of reasons for that loss, most of which have nothing to do with Huseth or his team. In our opinion, the biggest reason was that the Republican machine was able to focus exclusively on District 97, because previously, in race after race surrounding that District, no Democratic candidate showed up to run.
There is rightly a lot of talk about defending democracy in our nation. But lost in court battles over our rights is the fundamental fact that democracy is about giving the people choice. When we don’t give voters a choice because WE didn’t show up to run, we have already failed in our duty. From a civic standpoint, the failure to recruit and run candidates EVERYWHERE is not just bad tactically, it is a fundamental failing in our duty to our floundering democratic republic.
That was all before. The great thing about our country, though, is that there is always a new election around the corner where we can do better. Now is the time for citizens of courage to step up and run, and Future901 wants to help these citizens take this leap. So, to be clear, we have plenty of great folks running in the handful of safe seats in Memphis and Nashville. What we need are candidates in the Red House and Senate Districts. What we need are people to challenge out-of-state interests that seek to buy our school boards and aldermen/council positions in smaller cities and towns across the state.