Special election dates have been set to fill the state Senate seat vacated by former state Sen. Jim Tracy (R-Shelbyville).
Primaries have been set for Jan. 25, with the general election set for March 13, according to a writ of election issued by Gov. Bill Haslam.
Joe Carr and Shane Reeves are vying for the Republican nomination for the District 14 seat. Carr is a former state representative who ran unsuccessfully in primaries to unseat U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and U.S. Rep. Diane Black (R-TN-6). Reeves is a businessman who formerly owned the Reeves-Sain Family of Medical Services and currently owns TwelveStone Health Partners.
Democrat Gayle Jordan has also joined the race. The lawyer and farmer ran unsuccessfully against Tracy in 2016.
Tracy resigned from the Senate in early November to accept an appointment as state director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
District 14 covers Bedford, Lincoln, Marshall and Moore counties and part of Rutherford County.
Early voting for the primaries begins Jan. 5 and early voting for the general election begins Feb. 21.
[…] The Star reported on Wednesday, the Republican and Democrat primaries will be held on January 25, and the general […]
January 25th is the date when we will have the first of many Republican primaries during 2018 in which a candidate with a long record of conservative advocacy in public office is opposed by a candidate who has shown a talent for making money unencumbered by much of any ideology at all. In this case Joe Carr can be relied upon to represent conservatives in the State Senate while there is little doubt that Shane Reeves will have nothing to prevent him from being an excellent representative of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce. Hopefully conservatives will give Joe their full support