Heidi Kuhn has spent nearly three decades serving in Shelby County government in roles such as public health caseworker, victim advocate and criminal court clerk, before running for office outside the county’s borders.
But now, Kuhn is the Democratic nominee for Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District. She worries it’s a political race that gets no attention.
“I feel like most of the concentration has been on the 5th and the 9th,” Kuhn said in an Aug. 18 interview with the Tri-State Defender. “I really appreciate this opportunity to share what I feel for the 8th district.”
Kuhn’s path to Congress runs through a mayoral bid for Shelby County that failed to pan out. She lost the Democratic primary race in May, after declining to seek another term as criminal court clerk in order to run.
Following the May election, Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature redrew the state’s congressional map, splitting Shelby County across the 5th, 8th and 9th districts. Kuhn entered the race for the newly configured 8th, encouraged by U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, who has chosen to retire when his term ends in January, and former U.S. Reps. Harold Ford Sr. and John Tanner, she said.
In November, Kuhn will face incumbent Republican David Kustoff after defeating three other candidates in the federal Democratic primary on Aug. 6 with nearly 52% of the vote.
The district by the numbers
The 8th District now stretches across 12 counties, from East Memphis through Lakeland, Arlington, Germantown, part of Collierville and Bartlett, then north and east through slices of Tipton, Fayette, Gibson, Crockett, Decatur, Haywood, Henderson and Madison counties, before ending at Perry County, the westernmost edge of Middle Tennessee.
One specific change stands out to Kuhn. Cordova was not part of the old 8th District, but the new map moved it inside the district’s boundaries. Kuhn points to Cordova’s inclusion, along with the broader shift of other Democratic-leaning Shelby County precincts into the district, as one reason she believes the seat is more competitive than its Republican-held history suggests.
The concentration of blue precincts is central to Kuhn’s case that the seat is winnable. Certified returns from the Tennessee Secretary of State show Kustoff, who has held the seat since 2016 and ran unopposed in the Republican primary, collected 65,421 votes districtwide on Aug. 6 — about 20,000 more than the combined 45,778 votes cast across the four-way Democratic field, which Kuhn won with 23,783 votes.
To close that gap by November, Kuhn must consolidate the roughly 22,000 Democratic primary voters who backed one of her three opponents and court independent and moderate Republican voters to grow turnout beyond the existing base.
“(Voters are) tired of the high prices. They’re tired of the high gas, groceries, and so they want some change,” Kuhn said. “Since the majority of our votes come from Shelby County, we can try and get those independents as well as ‘small r’ Republicans to cross over.”
ICE, the National Guard and CoreCivic
Much of Kuhn’s platform centers on federal immigration enforcement in Shelby County. If elected, Kuhn said she would request a Department of Homeland Security, Inspector General or Government Accountability Office review of ICE task force operations locally.
She also opposes the presence of the National Guard in Memphis. “The National Guard should only be deployed when there is a national emergency,” Kuhn said. “In my opinion, there’s not a national emergency here in Memphis and Shelby County.”
Kuhn is also concerned about CoreCivic, the private prison operator that runs an ICE detention facility in Mason, Tennessee — a town about 35 miles northeast of Memphis in neighboring Tipton County in the 8th District.
“There is complete secrecy. There is no transparency,” she said. “To me, it seems illegal.”
Kuhn said she opposes what she described as racial profiling connected to immigration enforcement, including reports of legal residents being questioned about their immigration status in public. Kuhn would support restricting federal funding tied to 287(g) agreements, a formal deal between ICE and law enforcement agencies that allows ICE to deputize local or state police to carry out certain immigration enforcement duties.
Cost of living and the minimum wage
Asked how she would use a seat in Congress to address the rising costs of groceries, housing, household goods and childcare, Kuhn returned repeatedly to the federal minimum wage, unchanged at $7.25 an hour for more than two decades. Kuhn said she would back the Raise the Wage Act, a proposed bill to raise the minimum wage by 2030 to $17 an hour.
“We need to make sure that people don’t have to work two and three jobs to be able to afford diapers or to pay for childcare,” she said. “It makes it very difficult for them to get ahead.”
SpaceXAI and data centers in South Memphis
For SpaceXAI’s data center in South Memphis, Kuhn said she’d support a congressional inquiry or EPA investigation into whether the company’s natural gas-powered turbines have operated within Clean Air Act limits. She would also call for a moratorium on new data centers until these facilities are regulated.
“It is concerning to me that we are putting these data centers in poor neighborhoods, and those are the ones that are being affected the most,” she said, adding that she wants the data they collect to be scrutinized.
Redistricting and voting rights
Kuhn called the map that split Shelby County across three congressional districts a deliberate effort to dilute Black voting strength.
“There’s no question — when it was gerrymandered, they specifically wanted Republicans to take over those three districts,” she said. “They wanted to really take the Democratic vote away and silence the Black vote.”
Kuhn said she would cosponsor legislation restoring the Voting Rights Act preclearance provision, which required states known for discriminatory voting practices to submit any changes to their election laws for approval by the federal government. For example, she would support the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, proposed federal legislation that would reinstate and strengthen protections for voting rights. She also opposes proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration.
And she wants to advocate for the automatic restoration of voting rights for incarcerated individuals when they are released from prison. It’s an issue that she is interested in pursuing with outgoing U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, who had pushed similar legislative proposals before leaving her seat in Congress to run an unsuccessful race for U.S. Senate.
Expungements
As criminal court clerk, Kuhn pushed for Shelby County judges to sign off on case expungements in the courtroom immediately after a charge is dismissed or not prosecuted, rather than leaving the dismissal on a defendant’s record indefinitely. Kuhn said five of Tennessee’s largest counties have agreed to adopt automatic expungement policies, though Shelby County is so far the only one to actually implement it.
“My thought is, if it’s dismissed or not prosecuted, that person should get a second chance,” she said.
State takeover of Memphis schools
Kuhn opposes the state’s takeover of Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Though she acknowledged a congressional seat has no direct authority to reverse state action, Kuhn said she would look to federal levers such as Title I oversight and compliance reviews under the Every Student Succeeds Act to protect funding and student rights through the transition. She would also ask the U.S. Department of Education to review whether the state’s takeover plan complies with civil rights and equity requirements tied to federal funding.
And she opposes using taxpayer dollars for private school vouchers. Instead, she wants to increase teacher pay and replace the state’s single standardized test, TCAP, with multiple measures of student progress.
Asked what she would do to protect Title I and Individuals with Disabilities Act funding during the takeover transition, Kuhn acknowledged she is still working out her position.
“That’s a good question, and to be honest with you, I haven’t really considered it,” she said. “You gave me something to think about, and I’m going to look into that a little bit more.”
Closing message
Kuhn’s closing pitch to District 8 voters is simple: Show up.
Only 23% of registered voters turned out for the August primary.
“I think the greatest thing to tell my constituency is the fact that they need to get out and vote, because their voice needs to be heard,” she said. “I’m going to make decisions on what West Tennesseans need. You’ve got to talk with them, not at them or for them.”
