2024 ELECTIONS: WHAT WILL THE JOURNEY LOOK LIKE FOR GLORIA JOHNSON?

There are burdens that Tennesseans must put up with these days:

› The Titans playing poorly

› The shortage of pumpkin spice-flavored items

› And U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s tweets

Last week, while the country watched the horrific war between Israel and Hamas accelerate, Tennessee’s senior senator decided to tweet some nonsense.

“Leftist college students are siding with Hamas,” The Tennessee senator tweeted on Oct. 12. “Why does Biden want you to pay for their student loans?”

The tweet was referring to the numerous pro-Palestine protests happening across college campuses such as Harvard and the University at North Carolina. Then, of course, she had to throw a jab at the president’s efforts to relieve millions of people with crushing student loan debt of some of that burden.

This kind of politicization of the crisis in the Middle East underscores how important the 2024 elections will be and even more so in red Tennessee. Conflating the issues of a decades-long conflict in the Middle East and student loan forgiveness for struggling Americans is not the leadership Tennessee needs.

Among the candidates to root for next year is state Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, whose budding campaign to dethrone Blackburn already is speaking loudly to the desires many citizens.

When talking about Tennessee politics, people often describe a liberal pocket of Democratic voters within a Republican powerhouse state as a “blue island in a red sea.” Language like that oversimplifies a more complex reality.

For example, an Oct. 1-4 poll from Emerson College showed that in next year’s Senate race, Blackburn has 50% of voters’ support, while Johnson has 26%.

Johnson task — and it’s a big one — is to motivate the 25% of voters who support someone else or are undecided. This group leaves room for Johnson to grow her support and have a healthy chance at the ballot box of flipping a Senate seat.

There can be multiple reasons why voters are staying neutral or have no opinion.

“Some people are just generally unaware of some sort of state politics that are going on around them,” a spokesperson with Emerson College Polling said. “We see people being disinterested in politics right now.”

It’s hard to fathom how Tennesseans could be unaware of the state of politics in the Volunteer State. For example, the mass shooting at the private Covenant School in Nashville in March, which killed three children and three adults, prompted an outcry across the state and generated national and international headlines after the GOP tried to silence three Democratic state House lawmakers, including Johnson. Lee was prompted to call for a special session that ended with zero legislation related to gun reform being passed.

Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said Johnson’s support is highest among Black Tennessee voters.

She has 56% support of Black voters to Blackburn’s 11%, he said. Among white voters, 60% support Blackburn and 19% Johnson, the poll showed.

Black support is important for the Democratic candidate, and it’s encouraging and reassuring that Johnson has strong support in this demographic.

When looking at support across education levels, Blackburn has support from all levels except for postgraduates. Johnson holds 46% of their support to Blackburn’s 45%.

Blackburn polling just at 50% could mean that Johnson has a shot. “Usually as an incumbent you have above 50% going into a re-election, whereas she’s not in that space,” the Emerson College Polling spokesperson said.

Candidates such as Johnson offer Tennesseans a second option, a better way forward.

But the question remains if the neutral middle in our state will be ready and willing to participate in Tennessee politics.

IS TENNESSEE READY TO SAY GOOD RIDDANCE?

Republicans have exercised their power to silence opponents and create noise about divisive issues that rile the red base.

Politics is said to be the art of the possible. It’s not easy and never will be. And it’s hard to hold onto optimism when faced with Emerson poll results that show 40% of Tennesseans still believe that President Joe Biden stole the 2020 election.

But it’s not hard to remember that whether it’s her outrageous tweets or her antics that become a segment on “Saturday Night Live,” Marsha Blackburn does not represent everyone in this state.

Johnson’s journey to unseat Blackburn will be arduous. Not impossible, but arduous.

But she’s gonna need everyone to wake up.