OAN Staff Lillian Mann
1:28 PM – Friday, May 15, 2026
Representative Steve Cohen announced he is ending his re-election bid after more than 19 years in Congress, as Republican-led redistricting efforts gain momentum ahead of the November midterm elections under President Donald Trump’s political leadership.
On Friday, Cohen (D-Tenn.) revealed he would withdraw from his reelection bid following Tennessee Republicans’ adoption of redrawn maps that reshaped his majority-Black Memphis district.
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The congressman—who first took office in 2007— voiced his concern that Tennessee would likely shift entirely to a Republican congressional delegation after the next election and proceeded to file a lawsuit on May 7th, challenging the redistricting.
“I don’t want to quit. I’m not a quitter. But these districts were drawn to beat me,” Cohen told reporters in his Washington, D.C. office.
Nonetheless, Cohen stated that he would reenter the race if the court restores his original congressional district.
“If the courts restore the current 9th until 2028, I’ll remain a candidate, though that’s unlikely,” he said in an X post.
Tennessee was the first state to pass new congressional districts after the Supreme Court filing last month, and more Southern states are expected to follow as Republicans in Louisiana, Alabama and South Carolina have also initiated a redistricting effort, according to ABC News.
Cohen has represented his Memphis-based district for about two decades and is one of the last White Democrats serving the South.
“It’s unique in America that an African-American majority district has elected a White guy, and that we’ve got a great relationship, great amount of support,” said Cohen at the time.
The outgoing Democrat, a long time opposer of Trump, sought to blame the president for his political retirement, claiming that the redrawn lines were an effort “for Donald Trump to get one more vote, he thinks, to stop them from being impeached.”
However, Tennessee Republicans have strongly rejected that partisan framing. State lawmakers emphasized that the new congressional lines were drawn to comply with recent legal standards and to ensure fairer, more compact geographic representation for the state’s voters ahead of November.
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