Republicans look to keep Tennessee red

STATE STATS

Voter makeup: As of December 2023, Tennessee has 4.5 million registered voters spread across its 95 counties. Its largest, Shelby County, has just over 500,000 registered voters and includes Memphis, the state’s largest city. Voters are not required to state their party affiliation when they register.

Voting: First-time voters looking to participate in Tennessee must register in person, online, or through mail no later than 30 days prior to Election Day. Any mail-in registration forms must also be sent in before the 30-day mark, although paperwork received after that date will still be processed by the election commission office if the registration itself was filled out before the cutoff. First-time voters who register through mail must vote in person. Voters who are over the age of 60, are overseas, have a religious exemption, or are engaged in military duty may apply for an absentee ballot. The application must be accepted 7 days before an election.

PRESIDENTIAL

In 2020, former president Donald Trump, 78, took Tennessee’s 11 electoral votes in a 60.7 percent victory over President Joe Biden, 81, who received 37.5 percent of the vote. The state has voted for the Republican candidate for president going back almost 30 years. President Bill Clinton last won the state for Democrats in 1996.

Earlier this year, Trump won the Republican primary with 77.3 percent of votes. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, 52, won 19.5 percent. On the other side of the aisle, Biden largely swept the March 5 Democratic primaries with 92.1 percent. Although that left a remaining 8.9 percent, the 10,400 votes cast against Biden weren’t assigned to any particular candidate, reported out by the secretary of state simply as “uncommitted votes.”

SENATE

Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, 72, will run for a second term in November, facing down Democratic challenger Gloria Johnson, 62, along with three independent candidates. A poll put out by Vanderbilt University found that Blackburn held a ten-point lead over Johnson in May—a relatively comfortable 50-41. But that lead is down from the 16 percent gap between the two candidates found by the Tennessee Beacon in April where Blackburn led 45-29.

• Blackburn is the first woman to represent Tennessee in the upper chamber of Congress. In the Senate, she works on the Deputy Whip Team and sits on committees for finance; commerce, science, and transportation; veterans affairs; and the judiciary. Prior to her time in Washington, Blackburn served in the Tennessee state Senate from 1999 to 2003. After that, she represented the state’s 7th Congressional District in the U.S. from 2003 to 2019 before making a run for the Senate. She beat out Democratic candidate and former Gov. Phil Bredesen in 54.7-43.9 percent victory. Her campaign website lists fiscal responsibility and economic advancement as two of the Senator’s top issues.

• Johnson serves in the Tennessee House of Representatives, an office she has held since November 2022. She is a member of the “Tennessee Three” who held protests on the House floor after a 2023 school shooting in Nashville left six dead. Efforts to expel Johnson for her demonstrations failed in April along a 65-40 vote but captured national headlines. Prior to her time in office, Johnson worked as a special education teacher for 27 years. In addition to calling for stricter gun control measures, Johnson is running on a platform of abortion access and affordable housing, according to her website.

U.S. HOUSE

Tennessee has nine congressional districts, eight of which are held by Republicans. Tennessee’s delegation boasts a number of high-profile House lawmakers including Tim Burchett, 59, (one of the eight Republicans who voted to unseat former Speaker Kevin McCarthy over spending concerns) and Mark Green, 59, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, 75, has held the 9th District, which contains Memphis, since 2007. He last won reelection in 2022 with a resounding 70 percent–26.2 percent victory over Republican challenger Charlotte Bergmann.

JUDICIAL ELECTIONS

Tennessee Supreme Court justice Dwight E. Tartwater, 69, ran in a retention election on Aug. 1, securing his seat as one of the five judges on the court. According to the Tennessee Constitution, the governor appoints Supreme Court judges, the legislature confirms them, and they serve terms of eight years, after which they must run for retention. If the legislature fails to reject an appointee within sixty days, the nominee automatically becomes a member of the court. The court’s five members were appointed by Republican governors. In Tartwater’s case, Gov. Bill Lee nominated him in 2023 to serve out the remaining term of retiring Sharon G. Lee, who had served on the court since 2008.

Dig deeper:

• Read Carolina Lumetta’s reporting on the Tennessee Three, the group of legislators who took to the state’s House floor to protest with a bullhorn—and the aftermath that catapulted the incident into the nation’s spotlight.

• Tennessee is one of sixteen states that sued the Biden Administration over a noncitizen residency program.

• Federal courts dismissed a challenge to a Tennessee law prohibiting drag shows in July.

• Nashville’s Covenant School unveiled artwork commemorating the deadly shooting that left three children and three adults dead in March 2023.

• Tennessee advanced legislation earlier this year that would require parental consent before a minor would be able to create an account on social media.

Visit the WORLD Election Center 2024 to follow our state-by-state coverage between now and November.