Bradshaw overcomes odds to win Tenn. Senate nomination

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — U.S. Senate candidate Marquita Bradshaw just had to look at her parents for inspiration to become a community activist in Memphis, Tennessee.

Bradshaw, who won Thursday’s Democratic primary election over a well-funded opponent in the contest to replace Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, grew up in a predominantly Black neighborhood near an Army depot where waste disposal contaminated soil and groundwater. As residents got sick and died, her mother Doris and father Kenneth started the Defense Depot Memphis Concerned Citizen Committee, a group of teachers, business owners and professionals concerned about emerging health problems.

Bradshaw, who is Black, watched as her parents called attention to the dumping ground, which became a Superfund cleanup site after its closure in the 1990s. She’s using her experience as a community organizer to mount a grass-roots campaign that now turns its attention to Republican Bill Hagerty, a white former ambassador to Japan endorsed by President Donald Trump.

“My environmental justice work has taken me all over the state where I have met and engaged with people who are concerned with labor, environment, education, taxes, trade, and social justice policies,” Bradshaw says on her campaign website. “I am ready to serve, engage, and represent the people of Tennessee.”

The progressive's win over a field of Democrats, including establishment choice James Mackler, has drawn national attention in a Senate race where the focus had been on a contentious GOP primary. Bradshaw is the first Black woman nominated for statewide office by either major political party in Tennessee, according to the state Democratic Party.

But she wants more. A single mother whose son is in college, Bradshaw, 46, has battled foreclosure and bankruptcy, and struggled with student...