Tennessee’s elections were called for Republicans across the board not long after the polls closed on Tuesday night and the red state remained red, for the most part. One state-level seat flipped in Davidson County: a blue dot surrounded by red.
On the national scale, President Donald Trump won with an approximate 23 point lead over Democratic candidate Joe Biden. That lead is 3 points shy of his 2016 victory against Hillary Clinton. A total of just over 3 million votes were reported. Absentee votes favored Biden by just under one percent.
The last Democratic presidential candidate to win Tennessee was Bill Clinton in both elections in the 1990s.
For U.S. Senate, Republican candidate Bill Hagerty triumphed over Democratic candidate Marquita Bradshaw. Hagerty led by nearly 27 points, and enjoyed closer margins in the three Democratic counties of Shelby, Haywood, and Davidson than Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) enjoyed in 2018. The last Democratic U.S. Senator to win the seat was Al Gore in the 80s. Bradshaw hasn’t conceded the election by press time.
In the House, all seven Republican incumbents that were challenged took the victory, and did so with better margins than in 2018. In the sole open seat in District 1, Republican Diane Harshbarger beat Democrat Blair Walsingham by 52 points to succeed Phil Roe.
Both Districts 2 and 3 saw Republican incumbents Tim Burchett and Chuck Fleischmann lead Democrats Renee Hoyos and Meg Gorman by nearly 37 points each. Republican Scott DesJarlais secured District 4 from Democrat Christopher Hale with about 33 points.
In District 5, Democratic incumbent Jim Cooper went uncontested.
Republican John Rose retained District 6 with almost a 50 point lead over Democrat Christopher Finley. In District 7, Republican Mark Green beat Democrat Kiran Sreepada by about 43 points. And David Kustoff won District 8 from Democrat Erika Stotts Pearson with about 39 points.
The sole Democratic incumbent challenged, Steve Cohen, won by about 57 points against Republican Charlotte Bergmann.
Although the state legislature Republicans were confident about carrying all of their incumbent seats, Democrat Heidi Campbell upset Steve Dickerson by four points. The 2016 election was a portent for the flip: Clinton won the district’s vote by about 26 points, and the area is within deep blue Davidson County.
Republicans maintained the only open seat through Page Wally, who received 52 points over Civil Miller-Watkins. Out of the 16 races, Republicans won 14 seats and Democrats won two.
Of all 99 seats in the state House, six were open. Five of the six open seats were assumed by Republicans, and one to the Democrats. Democrat challenger Torrey Harris upset incumbent John DeBerry by 54 points.
Two of the elected made history as the first openly gay state representatives: Republican Eddie Mannis for District 18 and Harris for District 90.
The state House race favored majority Republicans, 72 seats to 26.
Tennessee is currently the third-worst for voter turnout – about 1.8 of the 4.9 million didn’t vote.
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Corinne Murdock is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and the Star News Network. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to [email protected].
last sentence of your statement is interesting as to voter turnout. maybe a lot of voters were not interested in the fraud taking place elsewhere in our country where voter turnout is exceeding normal turnout and in many cases voter registration.
no fraud or ballot harvesting in tennessee. if you can stand in line at walmart or free food give away you can stand in line to vote.
Right James B. I just stood in the checkout line at Walmart several minutes longer than it took me to vote. These mail out ballots are absurd! With early voting and absentee ballots which you request for yourself, it’s NO PROBLEM FOR ANYONE. Voting, like all other rights is something you exercise for yourself. Government does not provide your rights, it only protects them and, more importantly, does not violate or infringe on ANY of them!
We dominated except in Shelby and Davidson county. I hate to see that a majority of Davidson county voters are so staunch that they overwhelmingly voted for a career criminal politician, Biden, and a woman who isn’t fit to apply for a position at McDonald’s, Bradshaw.”
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, Cooper may be ousted one day, but Davidson county will just replace him with another liberal.
The suburbs are crumbling right before our eyes. Every Metro public school has turned into a temporary juvenile detention center. I grew up in Hermitage and it used to be such a safe place to shop and even walk at night. Not anymore.
Welcome to Nashville, the 𝙰̶𝚝̶𝚑̶𝚎̶𝚗̶𝚜̶ Detroit of the south.