Bradshaw challenges Hagerty for Tennessee's U.S. Senate seat

Marquita Bradshaw, a Memphis Democrat and environmental justice advocate, is on the ballot for U.S. Senate in Tennessee's Tuesday, Nov. 3 general election. She faces Republican Bill Hagerty along with independent candidates Andrew Gerena, Catherine Barcel Whitson, David Sutman Jr., James William Macon III, Jeremy Dean Hearn, Robert Jones, Tharon Chandler and Yoshi D. Matthews, according to BallotReady.

Mt. Juliet-area voters will see this statewide race on their ballot.

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.

Candidate information

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

Experience and public service

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

She previously ran for U.S. Senate in 2020, winning the Democratic primary before losing the general election to Hagerty by 27 percentage points, according to the Nashville Banner. That was her first statewide race. She ran again in 2024 but lost the Democratic primary to Gloria Johnson.

Her 2020 primary win made her the first African American woman to win a major political party nomination in any statewide race in Tennessee, according to Wikipedia.

Bradshaw's other roles have included environmental justice committee chair at the Sierra Club Tennessee Chapter, co-founder of Youth Terminating Pollution and volunteer project director at the Defense Depot Memphis Tennessee Concerned Citizens Committee, according to Wikipedia. BallotReady lists prior employment as a recruiter at the AFL-CIO from 2007 to 2009 and an administrative aide at Public Partnership from 2016 to 2023.

On the issues

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

Energy and environment: Bradshaw said she supports the Green New Deal. She told Knox News that rising fossil fuel costs drive up prices for working families and that the country must transition to cleaner energy. She said she wants corporations to have environmental, social and governance plans to remediate waste and decrease environmental harm, according to her campaign website.

On data centers, Bradshaw told Knox News, "We need a national moratorium on data centers until we understand exactly how much energy, how much water and how much pollution, because all those things affect people every day."

Healthcare: Bradshaw said on her campaign website she would fight to prevent medical bankruptcies and to simplify the healthcare system. She said she wants mental, dental, vision, reproductive health and addiction services included in healthcare legislation.

Education: Bradshaw said she supports funding universal pre-K, building toward free technical, community, HBCU and public college education, and relieving student debt, according to her campaign website. She said education funding should match military funding levels.

Economy and wages: Bradshaw said she supports raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and providing incentives to small and medium-sized businesses, according to her campaign website.

Criminal justice and guns: Bradshaw said she supports universal background checks, red flag laws, gun safety education and licensing requirements, and disarming domestic abusers, according to her campaign website. She said she supports community policing, restorative justice and overhauling the justice system to address what she called racial and income bias.