Pamela Jeanine Moses

Current office and 2026 campaign

Pamela Jeanine "P." Moses ran as an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate (Class 1) seat in Tennessee's 2024 general election, held November 5, 2024; she received 24,682 votes (0.82%) in a field topped by Republican incumbent Marsha Blackburn, who won with 63.8% ¹. Tennessee's certified 2026 candidate list for the redrawn 8th Congressional District also lists Moses as an independent candidate, alongside independents Adam D. Austill and Wendell "Wells" Blankenship, Republican incumbent David Kustoff, and several Democrats ²³.

Background and education

According to her Ballotpedia candidate profile, Moses was born in Kingsport, Tennessee, holds a high school diploma from Central Memphis High School, a bachelor's degree from the University of Tennessee (2000), and a graduate degree from Union University (2007) ⁴.

Career

Moses describes herself as an organizer, musician, and human rights advocate, and founded the Memphis chapter of Black Lives Matter ⁴. She ran for Mayor of Memphis in 2019 but was ruled ineligible for the ballot because of prior felony convictions ⁵.

Documented disputes and controversies

In 2015, Moses pleaded guilty to felony tampering with evidence, forgery, perjury, stalking, theft under $500, and escape, and was placed on seven years of probation; under Tennessee law those convictions made her permanently ineligible to vote ⁶. In 2019, while seeking to have her voting rights restored, a probation officer signed a certificate stating her probation had ended; a Tennessee Department of Correction review later found the officer had made this statement in error rather than because Moses had deceived him ⁶⁷. Moses registered and voted before the error was discovered. A jury convicted her in November 2021 of felony false entry on a voter-registration form, and Judge W. Mark Ward sentenced her on January 26, 2022, to six years and one day in prison ⁶⁷.

Reporting found that prosecutors had withheld an internal Department of Correction document concerning the probation officer's error; based on that withheld evidence, Judge Ward granted Moses a new trial in February 2022 ⁷. Moses had by then spent 82 days in custody. In April 2022, Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich dismissed the illegal-registration charge and an associated probation violation "in the interest of judicial economy," stating that the time Moses had already served "is sufficient" ⁸⁹. Moses remains permanently barred from registering to vote or voting in Tennessee ⁸.

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