Two of the three state Senate districts that cover Knox County are on the Nov. 3 ballot, with quite different dynamics.

Both districts are drawn to have strong Republican voting majorities.

In Senate District 5, which also includes Anderson and Loudon counties, Republican former state Rep. Jimmy Matlock is seeking to return to the Legislature, and is facing Democratic first-time candidate David Miller. The district is currently represented by Lt. Gov. Randy McNally of Oak Ridge, who is retiring this year.

Senate District 7, on the other hand, may give voters a sense of déjà vu. Incumbent Republican Sen. Richard Briggs is for the second election in a row facing Democratic candidate Bryan Langan.

Both districts were drawn by the Legislature’s Republican supermajority to favor their candidates, which isn’t hard to do given the overall GOP tilt of the counties involved. So both Miller and Langan face uphill battles.

District 5

The 5th Senate District is shaped like an hourglass, with most of the top portion in Anderson County and most of the bottom in Loudon County. But it also includes a portion of Karns and most of Hardin Valley in West Knox County, and it has a stray appendage that reaches down along Interstate 75 and Clinton Highway to take in Powell and a sizable chunk of North Knoxville. (It even includes the Fourth and Gill neighborhood, home to Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon.)

McNally, an Oak Ridger, has represented the district through multiple boundary changes since 1987. Now 82 years old, he decided not to seek reelection this year, creating an open seat for the first time since the Reagan era. Neither Matlock nor Miller had any primary opposition in the Aug. 6 election — but that’s about all they have in common.

Matlock, 67, is a Loudon County native who owns Matlock Tire Service and Auto Repair, which his father started in 1953. Under Matlock’s stewardship, it has expanded from Lenoir City to locations in Knox County, Maryville and Athens, Tenn. He served from 2007-2019 as the state representative for District 21. 

He didn’t run for reelection in 2018 because he chose instead to run for the 2nd U.S. Congressional District seat being vacated by longtime Rep. Jimmy Duncan. Matlock fought a rough and sometimes nasty Republican primary campaign against then-Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett, which Burchett won by a 48-36 percent margin before going on to win the seat in the general election.

Now Matlock is looking to return to Nashville. He remains not particularly well known in Knox County, but he’s a familiar name in Loudon County, where in addition to his business presence and past legislative service he has been chair of the Republican Party. He is also a member of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission and a trustee for Trevecca Nazarene University.

His campaign materials are short on policy statements, but Matlock was a strong supporter of school vouchers during his tenure in the state House of Representatives, although he departed before Gov. Bill Lee managed to push an initial voucher program through in 2019. He was also chair of the House Transportation Committee and has promised to fight for infrastructure in East Tennessee.

As the only Republican running in a strongly Republican district, Matlock has been cleaning up on campaign contributions all year. He reported raising $142,813.01 ahead of the Aug. 6 primary, in addition to a $50,000 loan he made to his campaign. His contributors include major political action committees: the Tennessee Bankers Association, Insurors of Tennessee, the Housing Industry PAC, the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the pro-voucher Tennesseans for Student Success.

As of the primary, Matlock had $157,591.15 on hand heading into the general election.

Miller, a retired educator, is running a much more modest effort. The 78-year-old Democrat raised just $14,300.60 before the primary, all of it in individual donations — including $4,500 from himself. He had $1,716.39 on hand for the general election.

Miller worked for 35 years as a teacher in public schools, correctional facilities and a drug rehab center. In 2024, he was elected to the Anderson County school board, defeating a Republican incumbent.

The top issues he has highlighted in his campaign are opposing the expansion of school vouchers, supporting public schools, and removing sales tax on all food. Miller has his work cut out for him — the last time McNally even had an opponent in the district, in 2018, the Republican won 72 percent of the vote.

District 7

Briggs, who is 73, is now one of the senior members of the state Senate. He is finishing his third term representing the oddly shaped 7th District, which in its current configuration is something of a buttonhook reaching from North Knox County through parts of East and West Knoxville before taking in most of West Knox County.

A retired U.S. Army colonel and heart surgeon, he has at times angered cultural conservatives in his party. He has not been a supporter of school vouchers, and he has introduced bills to allow more medical exceptions to the state’s abortion ban. After controversy over the banning of Alex Haley’s book Roots from Knox County Schools libraries, Briggs called for revisiting the state’s Age Appropriate Materials Act to ensure an appeals process and more clearly define which materials should be excluded.

Briggs has been chair of the state Senate’s powerful State and Local Government Committee. He attended the Legislature’s called special session in May to carve up Memphis’ congressional district into Republican-friendly chunks, but he did not vote on the final bill.

He has been one of the strongest voices in the Legislature for regulating and limiting the availability of hemp-derived THC, including the ban on THCA products that took effect July 1.

Briggs faced a primary challenge on Aug. 6 from the right — and one he was familiar with. Kent Morrell ran against him in the Republican primary in 2022 and repeated the attempt this year, but Briggs prevailed easily both times, winning about two-thirds of the vote. 

Now he has another repeat challenger in Langan, who has worked what he calls a variety of “blue-collar jobs” for most of the past three decades, including in the restaurant industry and manual trades. Langan also ran against Briggs in 2022, in a race that Briggs won with 62 percent of the vote. (You can read our coverage of that 2022 contest right here.)

Langan is running on two broad issues, accountability and affordability, under which he advocates for a number of priorities: expanding Medicaid and public pre-K instruction, campaign finance reform, state legislative term limits, fair district maps, and ending sales tax on groceries and some clothing and footwear.

He also supports more funding for public schools and infrastructure, access to reproductive health including abortion, and legalizing cannabis.

As a Senate committee chair, Briggs is something of a magnet for campaign contributions. He started 2026 with more than $600,000 in his campaign account, and as of the Aug. 6 primary that had risen to $661,287.11. (That includes $110,000 in self-endorsed loans.) His donors include healthcare PACs (Blue Cross Blue Shield, Tennessee Hospital Association) as well as business groups like the National Federation of Independent Businesses and the Tennessee Bankers Association.

Langan, not surprisingly, lags far behind in campaign resources. He started the year with $3,073.13 in his account, and as of the primary had $1,307.98 on hand — about 1/500th of Briggs’ total.