← Back to Shelby County, Tennessee: Election on 2026-08-06
Contest for Tennessee Senate District 31
primary - Partisan - State Senator
About this office
The Tennessee Senate is the upper chamber of the state legislature, with 33 members elected from single-member districts to four-year terms. Senators pass state laws, approve the state budget, confirm certain gubernatorial appointments, and — with the House — propose constitutional amendments.
Term length: 4 years.
This role calls for
- Integrity — Acts in the interest of constituents and the public good rather than for personal gain, and remains independent of undue influence from donors, lobbyists, and party leadership.
- Understanding of the constituency — Grasps both the economic-development needs of the district and the day-to-day concerns of individual residents — safety, healthcare, education, infrastructure.
- Persuasion — Engages, listens to, and persuades both fellow legislators and constituents. Can change minds and explain votes honestly.
- Legislative craft — Reads, drafts, and amends statute with care. Understands how specific bill language translates to outcomes, and knows the body of law being modified.
- Coalition-building — Finds common ground across partisan and factional lines, brokers compromises that hold, and forms working majorities even when consensus is hard to reach.
Derived from the office's statutory duties and operational reality. Candidate summaries below map each candidate's documented experience to these requirements.
Campaigns
Democratic Primary
1 candidate
His chaplaincy career and his co-authored *The Peace Class* — drawn from a seven-year course on Civil Rights–era nonviolence — point to unusual depth on listening, persuasion, and conflict resolution as practiced outside the chamber. The test for the constituency-understanding trait will be how concretely his stated platform (public-school investment, healthcare access, affordability, smart-on-crime combining suppression with prevention) becomes legislation he can move through the chamber.
Republican Primary
1 candidate
Long Shelby County office-holding tenure signals familiarity with the district. Legislative work concentrates on criminal justice (TLRC lifetime score 73, leadership grade A), with limited evidence of cross-domain craft. On integrity and coalition-building, Taylor's most visible inter-branch interactions have been confrontational — a sustained five-complaint ethics campaign against Shelby DA Steve Mulroy (all dismissed; Mulroy publicly noted Taylor was "0 for 5") and parallel referrals against Judge Paula Skahan — which voters can judge as either principled oversight or persistent attack as a governing style. Taylor also announced in May 2026 a simultaneous run for Tennessees redrawn 9th Congressional District; if he wins both, he would presumably take the federal seat and not serve this Senate term, leaving the seat to be filled by appointment or special election.
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