Tennessee Democrats cheer Harris at annual fundraiser, seek to make state gains

A current of enthusiasm for Vice President Kamala Harris ran through a downtown Nashville ballroom as Tennessee Democrats gathered for an annual fundraiser Saturday night, just days after the state's Democratic delegates were the first to formally back the newly presumptive presidential nominee.

"This is obviously the most critical election we’re going to have in our lives," Tennessee Democratic Party Executive Director Brian Cordova said. "I am so proud of this entire organization. It was no small thing to be the first state out supporting the vice president."

The party's annual Three Star Dinner was held at the downtown Omni Hotel, just steps away from the nearby Bitcoin2024 conference where former President Donald Trump was cheered as a keynote speaker earlier Saturday.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was the butt of repeated jokes Saturday night, kicked off by Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell who warned the ballroom there were credible reported sightings of a convicted felon nearby, Trump was convicted early this year of 34 felony counts over business fraud related to an alleged affair with an adult film star and subsequent cover-up attempt.

But the jovial mood inside the room juxtaposed with the tenor of speeches highlighting the importance of the November presidential election.

"We know that Democrats are needed now more than ever, because we have a direct threat to our government being delivered in the form of an orange apparition," said Michael Eric Dyson, an author and professor at Vanderbilt University.

With a Republican supermajority grip on Tennessee politics, Democratic power in the state has waned significantly in recent years.

Though Tennessee Democrats can't wipe out the supermajority this cycle, this fall's election will be a proving ground to determine if the party can take advantage of an increasingly negative perception of legislative leadership and fundraising boon following the gun control protests and Tennessee Three expulsions of 2023.

GOP Statesmen's Dinner: Tennessee Republican leaders tout Trump, set sights on November during annual fundraiser

Party leaders worked Saturday night to whip up enthusiasm for a handful of seats on the ballot this fall viewed as a potential toehold for chipping away at the supermajority, including House District 97 in Shelby County and Clarksville's House District 75.

"We must remain united," House Minority Leader Karen Camper, D-Memphis, said. "In times of great change and challenge, it’s easy to become divided. We must remember our strength comes from our unity. Let’s stand together, shoulder to shoulder, as we fight for the people we believe in."

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, capped off the night as the keynote speaker.

Raskin, a key member of the congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, criticized Republicans for failing to act decisively on gun violence. Citing a string of mass shootings in the U.S., including the Covenant School shooting in Nashville last year, Raskin also pointed to the July 13 attempted assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania, while noting the Trump shooting wasn't even the deadliest mass shooting of the day in America.

Raskin said last week he voted for a congressional task force to investigate the U.S. Secret Service failures that led to the Trump shooting, but criticized what he sees as a GOP overreliance on the Second Amendment to avoid acting on the "leading cause of death for children and young people in America."

"I voted for that that because we need to protect our presidential candidates in America," Raskin said. "But what about everybody else?"

Saturday's dinner was also a farewell to Tennessee Democratic Party Chair Hendrell Remus, who said he will leave the position after the November elections at the end of the year. Remus was first elected to chair the party in 2021, the first Black chair in party history. He was reelected for a his second two-year term in 2023.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Democrats cheer Harris at annual fundraiser, seek to make state gains