Tennessee: the Smokies vs. Graceland
Gather 'round children, let me tell you the story of Donald Trump and the Three Tennessees.
Topline Takeaways
Donald Trump’s win in Tennessee is due to his dominance in the Eastern Division of the state; home to one of the highest concentrations of Trump supporters in the nation.
Pres. Joe Biden almost beat Trump in the state’s Western Division, largely due to Memphis and the area’s relatively large African American population.
Despite being seen as a reliable Republican stronghold since 2000, Tennessee’s counties are undergoing some significant political shifts.
In-Depth Insights
Tennessee is split into three geographic regions known as “Grand Divisions.” The three Grand Divisions are formally defined in Tennessee state law and are even recognized by the state constitution. (Fun fact: the three stars on the Tennessee flag represent the three Grand Divisions.) The three regions are geographically and culturally distinct:
East Tennessee is primarily mountainous, home to the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. It extends west to the Cumberland Plateau which serves as the border between East and Middle Tennessee. East Tennessee also holds the origin of the Tennessee River and the headquarters of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The population here is heavily White and has one of the highest concentrations of White people in the United States.
Middle Tennessee is home to Nashville, one of the nation’s fastest growing cities. The area is known as a prime breeding ground for horses due to its grass and is known as a top equestrian destination. The region is also a hub for automotive manufacturing with Nissan, Mitsubishi and General Motors all operating plants in the area.
West Tennessee is mostly flat and agricultural and historically relied on cotton plantations for economic growth. This history of slavery has led the region to have a significantly larger African American population (over 30%) than either Middle or East Tennessee (both having roughly 10%).
Joe Biden’s base of support was primarily concentrated in West and Middle Tennessee. Despite his strength in urban areas to the west, Biden failed to keep close to Trump in the cities in East Tennessee, losing Chattanooga and Knoxville by a margin of 9 and 15 points respectively. This is in part due to the racial demographics of the state. Generally speaking, the concentration of African American voters increases as you travel west across the state toward the Mississippi River. As mentioned above, this is largely due to the area’s historical reliance on slavery that was unprofitable on smaller farms in the ridge-and-valley region to the east. Two of the three counties Biden won were the only two counties in the state where African Americans makeup a majority, both fall within West Tennessee.
Tennessee gave Donald Trump his highest raw vote margin in the nation, beating out even Texas, which has held this title in every presidential election since 1988. Trump performed most strongly in East Tennessee, a heavily White region that also has a large amount of evangelical Christians. The state’s 1st congressional district lies entirely in East Tennessee and was one of the nation’s top 10 “Trumpiest” districts in both 2016 and 2020, where Trump won 76% of the vote in both elections.
Forecasting the Future: Despite seeing little change in the overall statewide vote margin, many individual counties produced large shifts for both parties when comparing the most recent presidential election results to those of 2016. East Tennessee primarily saw shifts toward Democrats with vote-rich Knox county (home to Knoxville) showing the biggest shift in the region. In contrast, West Tennessee saw almost no counties producing significant shifts; only Lauderdale county moved toward Trump by slightly more than 5%.
Middle Tennessee is a bit of a shifting mess, nearly half of its counties saw shifts of at least 2% in the vote between 2016 and 2020. Nearly all of the suburban counties surrounding Nashville saw shifts toward Democrats. Williamson county, directly south of Nashville, is known as one of the nation’s wealthiest counties (largely due to its status as a hub for corporate CEOs and wealthy country musicians) and saw its support for Democrats increase substantially. Rutherford county, immediately east of Williamson county, is one of Tennessee’s fastest growing counties and saw a similar shift toward Democrats. But this ring of suburban success for Democrats is surrounded by an even larger ring of rural counties tilting further toward Republicans.
Overall, these shifts to both the left and right largely balance each other out. It’s worth keeping an eye on any continued shifts toward Democrats in and around cities as these heavily populated areas can help reduce vote margins the most but Democrats have such a large hill to climb from their abysmal 20+ point losses that Tennessee is unlikely to be competitive on the presidential level any time soon.