Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, May 15, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
Steve Cohen, a Democrat, has represented Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District since January 2007.
When Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature redrew its congressional map and carved up the district to favor Republicans, Cohen saw the writing on the wall.
Cohen, Tennessee’s lone Democrat in the House of Representatives, announced on Friday that he signed a document requesting not to be included on the ballot in this year’s midterms. He described the “new lines” as “nothing like the 9th district that I’ve represented.”
Did Cohen make a dignified exit?
That can be summed up in three words: Trump Derangement Syndrome.
“Donald Trump is the greatest threat to democracy, and to decorum and grace that we’ve ever seen. And we cannot allow him to have two [more] years without some vigorous oversight, which will occur if the Democrats win the House,” Cohen said.
Cohen tied his departure to the current map and left the door open to return if that map is somehow overturned. There are several lawsuits challenging Tennessee’s redistricting, but Cohen appeared resigned to the fact that those challenges are a long shot.
The Hill described a tearful Cohen telling reporters in his office in the Rayburn Building on Capitol Hill: “I don’t want to quit, I’m not a quitter. But these districts were drawn to defeat me.”
During Trump’s first term in 2017, it was Cohen who filed articles of impeachment against Trump over the Charlottesville hoax.
Cohen and his Democrat cohorts insisted, and to this day many of them continue to insist, that Trump referred to white supremacists as “very fine people.” That contention has been debunked for many years.
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