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Tennessee's 8th Congressional District election, 2026 (August 6 Democratic primary)

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← 2024
Tennessee's 8th Congressional District
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Democratic primary
Republican primary
General election
Election details
Filing deadline: March 10, 2026
Primary: August 6, 2026
General: November 3, 2026
How to vote
Poll times:

Varies by county
Voting in Tennessee

Race ratings
Cook Political Report: Solid Republican
DDHQ and The Hill: Pending
Inside Elections: Solid Republican
Sabato's Crystal Ball: Safe Republican
Ballotpedia analysis
U.S. Senate battlegrounds
U.S. House battlegrounds
Federal and state primary competitiveness
Ballotpedia's Election Analysis Hub, 2026
See also
Tennessee's 8th Congressional District
U.S. Senate • 1st • 2nd • 3rd • 4th • 5th • 6th • 7th • 8th • 9th
Tennessee elections, 2026
U.S. Congress elections, 2026
U.S. Senate elections, 2026
U.S. House elections, 2026

A Democratic Party primary takes place on August 6, 2026, in Tennessee's 8th Congressional District to determine which Democratic candidate will run in the district's general election on November 3, 2026.

Candidate filing deadline Primary election General election
March 10, 2026
August 6, 2026
November 3, 2026



A primary election is an election in which registered voters select a candidate that they believe should be a political party's candidate for elected office to run in the general election. They are also used to choose convention delegates and party leaders. Primaries are state-level and local-level elections that take place prior to a general election. Tennessee utilizes a closed primary process; a voter must either be registered with a political party or must declare his or affiliation with the party at the polls on primary election day in order to vote in that party's primary.[1]

For information about which offices are nominated via primary election, see this article.

This page focuses on Tennessee's 8th Congressional District Democratic primary. For more in-depth information on the district's Republican primary and the general election, see the following pages:

Candidates and election results

Note: The following list includes official candidates only. Ballotpedia defines official candidates as people who:

  • Register with a federal or state campaign finance agency before the candidate filing deadline
  • Appear on candidate lists released by government election agencies

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for U.S. House Tennessee District 8

William Wicker is running in the Democratic primary for U.S. House Tennessee District 8 on August 6, 2026.

Candidate
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William Wicker Candidate Connection

There are no incumbents in this race.

Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Candidate profiles

This section includes candidate profiles that may be created in one of two ways: either the candidate completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey, or Ballotpedia staff may compile a profile based on campaign websites, advertisements, and public statements after identifying the candidate as noteworthy. For more on how we select candidates to include, click here.

William Wicker

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WebsiteFacebookX

Party: Democratic Party

Incumbent: No

Political Office: None

Submitted Biography:  "I'm William Wicker, I am currently 27 as of writing. I was born in Memphis, I lived in Shelby County, Tennessee for the first few years of my life and moved to Atoka in Tipton County, Tennessee where I grew up. I attended Brighton High School and graduated from there in 2016. I then attended Christian Brothers University for the fall 2016 semester, but I had to stop attending due to it simply being too unaffordable. I then went to Dyersburg State Community College, graduating in 2019, while attending DSCC I was in a car crash that resulted in my truck being destroyed(I was thankfully unharmed), that was my harsh awakening, as I had to unsuccessfully search for a job for years, only finally finding a job as a security guard in July 2019. I moved with my parents to Jackson, Tennessee in late 2021, as they wanted to move closer to my grandparents. I quickly found a job in Jackson that I have been at since, this job paid most of my tuition to attend The University of Arizona Global Campus, from where I graduated in November 2024 with a B.A. in Operations Management and Analysis. I have been passionate about politics for a while now and finally decided to run because of the disaster that has been the 2nd Trump administration."

Key Messages

To read this candidate's full survey responses, click here.

The affordability crisis is affecting nearly every facet of life, from healthcare to housing to food and gas prices. Wages have not kept up with productivity or inflation in decades, with the last raise in minimum wage occurring when I was just 11 years old. So many Tennesseans are living check to check and cannot afford to save for anything, leading to them getting exploited by greedy companies that take advantage of their poverty. Congress must step in and raise the minimum wage to at least $18 an hour. As of writing the ACA subsidies are set to expire in just over a month, resulting in health insurance becoming unaffordable to many Americans, we must work to make healthcare cheaper or even provided by the government, just as in Canada.

Wealth inequality is at an all time high, even higher than it was during the era of robber barons and the Gilded Age. Deregulation and many other factors led us into this kerfuffle, while Elon Musk and Donald Trump and their cronies are stuffing their pockets millions of Americans are going hungry and without adequate shelter, I see this nearly every day when I am going to work, with the indigent begging for relief on roadsides and at intersections in Jackson. We must tax the rich more and use that money to aid the common American, instead of letting it sit in a bank account and do nothing. Trickle-down economics has failed and we are living with the results of that failure, as austerity has become the rule, we must fix this failing.

"Gerontocracy" means government by old people, which our country has effectively become, these officials will not live to see the results and failures of the systems they mess with and implement, my generation will have to live with the results for decades, just as we have to live with the results of doing minimal effort to stop climate change. I think that we need younger people involved in government, but this is stymied by structural issues with election law, such as the FEC liming candidate salary to an average of the last 5 years of their pay, for me that would simply not be enough to live on because I cannot afford health insurance without an employer subsidy. We must work to make the government more equitable.

Voting information

See also: Voting in Tennessee

Ballotpedia will publish the dates and deadlines related to this election as they are made available.

Campaign finance

Name Party Receipts* Disbursements** Cash on hand Date
William Wicker Democratic Party $0 $0 $0 Data not available***

Source: Federal Elections Commission, "Campaign finance data," 2026. This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

* According to the FEC, "Receipts are anything of value (money, goods, services or property) received by a political committee."
** According to the FEC, a disbursement "is a purchase, payment, distribution, loan, advance, deposit or gift of money or anything of value to influence a federal election," plus other kinds of payments not made to influence a federal election.
*** Candidate either did not report any receipts or disbursements to the FEC, or Ballotpedia did not find an FEC candidate ID.

District analysis

Click the tabs below to view information about voter composition, past elections, and demographics in both the district and the state.

  • District map - A map of the district in place for the election.
  • Competitiveness - Information about the competitiveness of 2026 U.S. House elections in the state.
  • Presidential elections - Information about presidential elections in the district and the state.
  • State party control - The partisan makeup of the state's congressional delegation and state government.


Below is the district map in place for this election. Click the map below to enlarge it.

2023_01_03_tn_congressional_district_08.jpg
See also: Primary election competitiveness in state and federal government, 2026
Information about competitiveness will be added here as it becomes available.

Partisan Voter Index

See also: The Cook Political Report's Partisan Voter Index

Heading into the 2026 elections, based on results from the 2024 and 2020 presidential elections, the Cook Partisan Voter Index for this district is R+21. This meant that in those two presidential elections, this district's results were 21 percentage points more Republican than the national average. This made Tennessee's 8th the 30th most Republican district nationally.[2]

2020 presidential election results

The table below shows what the vote in the 2024 presidential election was in this district. The presidential election data was compiled by The Downballot.

2024 presidential results in Tennessee's 8th Congressional District
Kamala Harris Democratic Party Donald Trump Republican Party
29.0% 70.0%

Presidential voting history

See also: Presidential election in Tennessee, 2024

Tennessee presidential election results (1900-2024)

  • 15 Democratic wins
  • 17 Republican wins
Year 1900 1904 1908 1912 1916 1920 1924 1928 1932 1936 1940 1944 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024
Winning Party D D D D D R D R D D D D D R R R D R R D R R R D D R R R R R R R
See also: Party control of Tennessee state government

Congressional delegation

The table below displays the partisan composition of Tennessee's congressional delegation as of October 2025.

Congressional Partisan Breakdown from Tennessee
Party U.S. Senate U.S. House Total
Democratic 0 1 1
Republican 2 7 9
Independent 0 0 0
Vacancies 0 1 1
Total 2 9 11

State executive

The table below displays the officeholders in Tennessee's top three state executive offices as of October 2025.

State executive officials in Tennessee, October 2025
Office Officeholder
Governor Republican Party Bill Lee
Secretary of State Republican Party Tre Hargett
Attorney General Republican Party Jonathan Skrmetti

State legislature

Tennessee State Senate

Party As of October 2025
     Democratic Party 6
     Republican Party 27
     Other 0
     Vacancies 0
Total 33

Tennessee House of Representatives

Party As of October 2025
     Democratic Party 24
     Republican Party 75
     Other 0
     Vacancies 0
Total 99

Trifecta control

Tennessee Party Control: 1992-2025
Five years of Democratic trifectas  •  Fifteen years of Republican trifectas
Scroll left and right on the table below to view more years.

Year 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Governor D D D R R R R R R R R D D D D D D D D R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
Senate D D D D R D D D D D D D D R R S S R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R
House D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R

Ballot access

The table below details filing requirements for U.S. House candidates in Tennessee in the 2026 election cycle. For additional information on candidate ballot access requirements in Tennessee, click here.

Filing requirements for U.S. House candidates, 2026
State Office Party Signatures required Filing fee Filing deadline Source
Tennessee U.S. House All candidates 25 N/A 3/10/2026 Source

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ LexisNexis, "Tenn. Code Ann. § 2-7-115," accessed July 16, 2025
  2. ↑ Cook Political Report, "2025 Cook PVI℠: District Map and List (119th Congress)," accessed July 1, 2025


Tennessee's current delegation to the United States Congress
Senators
Marsha Blackburn (R)
Bill Hagerty (R)
Representatives
District 1
District 2
District 3
District 4
District 5
District 6
John Rose (R)
District 7
District 8
District 9
Republican Party (10)
Democratic Party (1)


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