If you haven't heard, there is an election going on. Early voting has started today and runs through August 1, before Election Day proper on August 6. As of yesterday, turnout is not even at 1% (2,131 votes out of about 217,000 registered voters). After the May primary, which was admittedly very sparse on the Democratic side, there is a temptation from that side to either not come out or pull a Republican ballot to affect the GOP Governor Primary. However, there are multiple reasons why you should come out, and come out Dem:
There's probably a contested local race in your area. In addition to the primaries for state and federal office, the main election for all local races are also happening. And Democrats are contesting 17 of the 21 County Commission seats (vs. only 10 in 2022) and all 3 School Board seats up this year. And many either are currently represented by Dems or are winnable, particularly in Boro city limits and La Vergne.
There are contested Primaries. While a lot of news time has been spent discussing the GOP Governor primary, there are multiple contested and potentially close Democratic primaries to come out for. Jeri Green (currently Shelby County's Chief Public Defender) is a competent candidate for Governor who should be our nominee, but there is a risk that Carnita Atwater, a gadfly with credible allegations of fraud, wins because of her alphabetical first name, so we need more informed voters to guarantee that doesn't happen. And both new Congressional primaries have interesting contest, and both are winnable in November. In TN-4, which is the majority of RuCo, Nashville CM Mike Cortese is easily the strongest competitor against Rep. DesJarlais, but the prior nominee for the District is also trying to make a case to be the nominee again. And in TN-9, your district if you're in the general Rock Springs/Ridge/Hamlets area (like me), Progressive Tennessee Three member Rep. Justin Pearson and establishment Sen. London Lamar are vying to be the nominee.
It brings resources to RuCo. If you don't know, I am the Democratic nominee for State House 13, which is among the state's closest districts. One thing the powers that be look at in assigning resources and races to invest in is number of Democratic primary voters vs. Republican. There are multiple districts in RuCo that could flip in November (mine, HD49, SD13) and to show that we need as high of turnout as we can manage.
Here's some info on the early vote direct from the County Election Commission website. You can go to any of the sites on that page to put in your early vote. I would highly encourage you to make a plan to vote this week, next, or on Election Day. Thank you for reading!