Marquita Bradshaw seeks Tennessee U.S. Senate seat in 2026

Marquita Bradshaw, a Memphis Democrat and environmental justice advocate, is running against Republican Bill Hagerty for Tennessee's U.S. Senate seat in the Nov. 3, 2026, general election.

Bradshaw said on her campaign website that her priorities include affordable healthcare and housing, strong public schools, universal broadband, voting rights, fair electoral districts, climate resilience, environmental justice and greater economic opportunity.

The race includes nine other candidates: Andrew Gerena (Independent), Bill Hagerty (Republican), Catherine Barcel Whitson (Independent), David Sutman Jr. (Independent), James William Macon III (Independent), Jeremy Dean Hearn (Independent), Robert Jones (Independent), Tharon Chandler (Independent) and Yoshi D. Matthews (Independent), according to BallotReady.

Candidate information

Party: Democratic
Office sought: U.S. Senate, Tennessee
Election date: Nov. 3, 2026
Born: Jan. 12, 1974, Memphis
Education: Bachelor's degree in journalism, University of Memphis (2019)
Residence: South Memphis (tenth-generation resident, according to her campaign)

Experience and public service

Bradshaw was the first African American woman to win a major political party nomination in any statewide race in Tennessee, according to Wikipedia. She won the 2020 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate but lost the general election to Hagerty by 27 percentage points, according to the Nashville Banner. She ran again in 2024. She lost that primary to Gloria Johnson.

She founded Sowing Justice, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on civic engagement in pollution-affected communities, in December 2020. She serves as its executive director, according to BallotReady.

Her other advocacy work includes co-founding Youth Terminating Pollution, chairing the Sierra Club Tennessee Chapter's environmental justice committee and serving as volunteer project director for the Defense Depot Memphis Tennessee Concerned Citizens Committee, according to Wikipedia. She worked as a recruiter for the AFL-CIO from 2007 to 2009 and as an administrative aide at Public Partnership from 2016 to 2023, according to BallotReady data.

On the issues

The following positions are drawn from Bradshaw's campaign website and her responses to questionnaires, including Knox News and BallotReady. All statements reflect the candidate's own claims.

Healthcare: Bradshaw said she wants to fight for legislation guaranteeing patients will not face bills that bankrupt their families. She said she supports including mental, dental, vision, reproductive health and addiction services in healthcare legislation. "Working families in Tennessee don't have time to worry about copays, deductibles, insurance premiums, and the never-ending list of things that keep you from getting care," Bradshaw said on her campaign website.

Environment and energy: Bradshaw said she supports the Green New Deal. She called for corporations to have environmental, social and governance plans to remediate waste. She told Knox News she wants to move toward cleaner energy to break dependence on fossil fuels, arguing that when gas prices rise, costs rise for working people. She also called for a national moratorium on data centers until their energy, water and pollution impacts are understood.

Education: Bradshaw said she supports funding universal pre-K, building toward free technical, community, HBCU and public college education, and relieving student debt. She said education should be funded at the same level as the military.

Wages and economy: Bradshaw said she supports raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. She said she wants to provide incentives and investments to small and medium-sized business owners.

Guns: Bradshaw said she supports universal background checks, extreme risk/red flag laws, gun safety education and licensing requirements. She also called for disarming domestic abusers.