Good morning! Welcome to Your Week, our subscriber-exclusive newsletter where each Sunday we feature some of our best stories about Nashville and beyond.
I am politics and investigations editor Duane Gang.
🗳️ Thursday is election day in Tennessee where we hold our state and federal primaries and a number of county and municipal general elections. Early voting has ended and now all eyes will be on Thursday.
If you didn't cast your ballot ahead of time, here are some help stories to catch you up on some of the key races.
∎ One of the most-watched races is the Republican primary for Tennessee's 5th Congressional District . The district once included all of Nashville but after the 2020 census, Republican state lawmakers split Davidson County into three districts.
This made the 5th a Republican dominated district and U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Columbia, won a crowded Republican primary in 2022 and then the general election. Now, Ogles faces a well-funded challenge from Metro Council member Courtney Johnston.
Politics reporter Vivian Jones profiles both candidates, their records and what they are talking about on the campaign trail. Check those stories out below.
∎ Another key race to watch is the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate . The Senate race is the only statewide contest on the ballot this year and incumbent U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn is seeking a second six-year term. She does not face a serious primary challenge and will head into November as the frontrunner.
For Democrats, the two leading candidates are state Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, and Memphis activist Marquita Bradshaw, the 2020 Democratic U.S. Senate nominee. She lost to U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty.
Vivian caught up with both Johnson and Bradshaw and explored how the candidates hope to push the party ahead. No Democrat has won a statewide contest in Tennessee since 2006 and has struggled to break 40% of the vote in most recent statewide elections.
∎ There's more, too. Please check out this guide, where you can get caught up on U.S. House races and the battle of the state legislature, where Republican candidates are pushing the party to the right on key issues .
📰 A subscription helps support our award-winning political coverage . Most recently, our political team won first place in news reporting at the Tennessee Press Association for coverage of the Tennessee Three, the effort to expel Democratic lawmakers from the state legislature.
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As always, thank you for your continued support, and don't hesitate to reach out.
— Duane W. Gang , The Tennessean
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Thursday is our primary election
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