Tennessee

Marsha Blackburn won the governor’s office with 45.5% of the vote to 43.0% for the Democrat, Jerri Green. Neither reached a majority; independent candidates took the rest. Blackburn, a U.S. senator, succeeds Gov. Bill Lee, who had reached his term limit, and is the first woman elected governor of Tennessee, WSMV reported.¹ The Senate race was not as close: Republican Bill Hagerty beat Democrat Marquita Bradshaw by 12.2 points.

Republicans held eight of the state’s nine U.S. House seats before the election and have won eight, but the list changed. In the Ninth District, the only seat Democrats held, Republican Brent Taylor beat Democrat Justin Pearson by 1.1 points. It was the first election on a congressional map redrawn in a special session in May, which split Memphis among three districts, WSMV reported.² The Fourth District, a Republican-held seat, is not called.

Measured in the Senate race, Tennessee moved 17.6 points toward the Democrats from the 2024 presidential vote. Measured in the governor’s race, it moved 27.2. Both parties drew fewer votes than in 2024, Republicans far fewer: Bradshaw drew 84 votes for every 100 Kamala Harris won in the state, and Hagerty drew 58 for every 100 of Trump’s. Turnout, measured by the governor’s race, the most-voted contest, was 121% of 2022’s and 69% of the 2024 presidential vote. Republican candidates won the U.S. House vote statewide by 9.1 points, down from 31.0 in 2024.

Every region moved the same way, by 13.0 to 18.2 points. The Nashville metro area, which casts 31% of the vote, moved furthest and changed sides: R+17.5 for president, D+0.7 for Senate. The Chattanooga metro area went from R+18.2 to R+2.0, and the Knoxville metro area from R+35.5 to R+18.6. The Memphis metro area, already Democratic, moved least and finished at D+28.6. The small towns and rural counties, with 21% of the vote, moved 13.3 points and still voted Republican by 47.7.

Hamilton County, in the Chattanooga area, is the largest of the three counties that voted for Trump in 2024 and for Bradshaw, who lost statewide, this year. It went from R+13.0 to D+2.6 on 124,252 votes. Rutherford County, in the Nashville area, moved farther, 22.0 points, and finished at D+0.2. Montgomery County, in the Clarksville area, finished at D+0.1. Knox County nearly joined them: Trump won it by 19.5 points and Hagerty by 1.9.

In the governor’s race Knox did join them. WSMV counted five counties that voted for Trump in 2024 and for Green this year, on unofficial results: Madison, Montgomery, Hamilton, Knox and Rutherford. Republicans flipped none.³

Republicans keep the governor’s office and both chambers of the General Assembly, so control of the state’s government does not change. The state Senate stayed at 27 Republicans and 6 Democrats. In the House, six seats flipped from Republicans to Democrats, three of them in Rutherford County, WPLN reported.⁴ Ballotpedia’s count has Republicans falling from 75 seats to 69 of 99, with 29 Democrats; our own count could not read three districts.⁵ A veto override takes a majority of all the members elected to each house, according to the constitution’s text as Ballotpedia publishes it.⁶ Ballotpedia says Republicans would have had to lose six Senate seats and 10 House seats to lose the ability to refer constitutional amendments without Democratic votes.⁵

Blackburn is to be sworn in on January 16. At a news conference with Lee the day after the election she named the cost of living as a top issue, along with housing permitting, workforce housing and childcare, and described a review of the state budget for unfilled positions and underused programs. “Tennesseans have been very specific that the cost of living is going to be a top issue for them and getting that cost of living down,” she said.⁷

By Ballotpedia’s summary, the legislature draws both the congressional and the state legislative maps, and the governor can veto them.⁸

Voters approved three constitutional amendments. An amendment in Tennessee has to do more than win its own question: as WSMV described the rule, it needs more yes votes than no votes, and its yes votes must be more than half of all the votes cast in the governor’s race.⁹ Amendment 1 lets judges deny bail to people accused of some of the most violent crimes; the constitution already required that for people accused of a capital offense. Amendment 2 bans a statewide property tax, which Tennessee has not levied for more than 75 years. Amendment 3, known as Marsy’s Law, expands the rights of crime victims during the judicial process. WSMV reported that all three passed.^{10, 11}

Clarksville chose Mark Riggins as mayor in a three-way race. He beat Wanda Smith by 1,010 votes; Brian Zacharias was the other candidate, Clarksville Now reported.¹² Montgomery County, in the Clarksville area, went from R+18.4 to D+0.1 in the Senate race.

Republicans won again in nine of the seats they held, the governor’s office and the Senate seat among them, but by much less than Trump’s margins. Three U.S. House districts that voted for Trump by more than twenty points were held by fewer than five: Matt Van Epps won the Seventh by 2.2, Johnny Garrett the Sixth by 3.3 and Charlie Hatcher the Fifth by 4.9. Republicans carried 89 of the 95 counties in the Senate race, though no county moved toward them. The state Senate did not change, and by Ballotpedia’s count House Republicans still hold more than two-thirds of that chamber.^{5, 13} Democrats won no statewide office and no U.S. House seat that has been called.

Neither of Tennessee’s Senate seats is scheduled to be on the ballot in 2028, but one may be there anyway. Blackburn will leave her U.S. Senate seat to become governor and, as governor, will appoint her successor. WSMV, citing congress.gov, reported that the appointee serves until a special election at the next regularly scheduled general election, in 2028. The Associated Press described the appointee as serving out the rest of her term, which ends in January 2031.^{1, 14} The state voted R+29.7 for president in 2024 and R+12.2 in this year’s Senate race.

The Fourth District is not called in our count. Democrat Victoria Broderick leads Republican Rep. Scott DesJarlais by 0.1 points, 48.9% to 48.7%, in a district Trump carried by 23.7. WSMV put the gap at 280 votes on the secretary of state’s unofficial count. Tennessee law has no automatic recount and does not let a candidate request one, the station reported; a recount can come only if a candidate contests the election.^{2, 15}