WASHINGTON — Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen turned on the waterworks Friday after Republicans redrew his congressional district and effectively sent his nearly two-decade House career into retirement — a spectacle that many Republicans will likely view as rich irony after years of Democrats aggressively defending partisan redistricting when it benefited their side.
🚨 JUST IN: Crybaby Rep. STEVE COHEN (D-TN) drops a SORE LOSER statement after getting BOOTED by redistricting, now accusing Republicans of “silencing the black vote in Memphis” and whining “These districts were drawn to beat me!” pic.twitter.com/kRxmgkJ1Ew
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) May 15, 2026
The longtime Memphis congressman appeared visibly emotional during an interview with Chris Cuomo, lamenting that the new congressional map left him with virtually no shot at reelection.
“I’m upset by this,” Cohen said during the interview. “And I don’t get the criticism of stand and fight.”
“Why would you fight when they changed the district and there aren’t enough votes for you to win? That’s silly.” In other words: why bother persuading new voters when you can just complain the map isn’t tailor-made for you anymore?
Cohen, who has represented Tennessee’s Memphis-based 9th Congressional District since 2007, blasted the Republican-led remap as “bad for democracy” after GOP lawmakers split up the heavily Democratic district into multiple Republican-leaning seats.
The congressman also complained that mid-decade redistricting is “almost never done” — though that argument may ring hollow for conservatives who spent years watching Democrats in states like Illinois, Maryland and New York aggressively redraw maps to squeeze Republicans whenever they had the power to do it. Back then, there was little pearl-clutching from the left about “democracy.”
Now suddenly the system is unfair.
Cohen accused outgoing Republican Gov. Bill Lee of bowing to pressure from President Trump and national Republicans eager to gain another House seat ahead of the 2026 midterms. Lee signed the new map into law May 7.
During the interview, Cohen became emotional enough to acknowledge his own tears on air. “It’s funny, my press conference today is the most cameras I think I’ve had since the Victoria incident,” he said. “And here we are again. And I got tears.”
The remark referenced the bizarre 2013 controversy involving Victoria Brink, a woman Cohen publicly believed was his biological daughter before a paternity test revealed otherwise.
Cohen also reflected on his unusual political position as a white Democrat representing a majority-Black district for nearly 20 years.
“I’ve got a great district, wonderful people. They’ve supported me so well,” he said. “You know, it’s an amazing thing that the African-American community supported me for 20 years as they did.”
Then the predictable racial broadside: “And the Republicans don’t see it, and they just tear it apart because they have no perspective of caring about African-Americans or caring about people getting together and anything nice that happens,” Cohen declared. “It’s a tough sport, and they play it tough.”
Politics is a tough sport — something Republicans have been told repeatedly for years whenever they lost seats to Democratic maps, court rulings or demographic shifts. The difference is most politicians at least pretend they’re willing to compete for voters outside their comfort zone. Cohen, by contrast, seemed to argue that if the electorate changes, the game itself must be illegitimate.
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Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen (D) tears up on air after redistricting ends his reelection bid.
The longtime Memphis Democrat announced he’s dropping his campaign after Republicans redrew the 9th District in a mid-decade map change, carving up his majority-Black district.
Cohen got… https://t.co/VGxr7JnML6 pic.twitter.com/m5XeKcBZKZ
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) May 17, 2026
