Tennessee Republicans Finally Have Something to Worry About

Three hours after polls closed in Tennessee on Nov. 3, the band at Marsha Blackburn’s victory party surrendered, promising that the senator-turned-governor would be out soon. Her race wasn’t supposed to be close. Neither 10 minutes of “Rocky Top” nor Brooks & Dunn covers could reverse the sinking feeling spreading across huddles of Republicans in The Pinnacle’s red-lit auditorium as the party registered defeat after defeat across the country.

Conservative commentator Clay Travis took the stage around 10:05 p.m. to introduce Blackburn’s victory speech. Since announcing her campaign for governor, just nine months into her second U.S. Senate term, Blackburn was considered a blowout favorite to win. But Democrat Jerri Green was still running within a few points of her three hours after the polls closed. No major news outlet would officially call the race for another hour, but the campaign “liked their internal numbers,” one aide told the Scene. So they seized the spotlight anyway, violating a central democratic norm: Never declare your own victory. That’s what leads to a contested election.

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“ I’m grateful to be elected the next governor of the great state of Tennessee,” Blackburn began Tuesday night, flanked by her family and other elected officials — including campaign treasurer Glenn Jacobs (the Knox County mayor known as Kane in the WWE) and state Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson.

Despite securing just 45.5 percent of the vote, Blackburn embraced the diminished results as a partisan victory.

“ Tennessee has become a Christian conservative standard-bearer, an economic powerhouse — it is the place that people want to be,” Blackburn told the cheering crowd. “Our job is going [to be] to keep what we’ve got and to make the best better, and we will focus on doing that. And I will tell you this: As your governor, you can count on me to fight with every fiber of my being against the socialist, communist, Islamist policies.”

National midterm election results shocked both parties. Democrats were still reaping spoils days after the election as Alaska and Mississippi slowly tallied ballots in their favor. Seats considered safe for Republicans in Kansas, Iowa and South Carolina flipped blue. In Tennessee, Democrats flipped six state House seats: one apiece in Clarksville, Memphis and Knoxville, and three in Murfreesboro, cutting the GOP chamber advantage to 69-30. It was a victory for House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons of Nashville, and proof that the path to more success goes through Tennessee’s sprawling suburban neighborhoods.

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Nashville’s State House and Senate Election Results

Democrat Mark Proctor wins state House District 59; Rutherford County delegation flips blue

With population centers like Murfreesboro and Chattanooga trending purple, the new congressional districts essentially pit chunks of Shelby County and Davidson County against rural areas that favor the GOP. During May’s special session on redistricting, the state’s Republican supermajority drew their party a 12-point advantage in six congressional districts. That advantage all but evaporated six months later. Victoria Broderick, who has been campaigning against scandal-ridden Republican incumbent Scott DesJarlais for more than two years, flipped Tennessee’s 4th Congressional District by just 280 votes. Broderick will replace retiring U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen as the state’s sole Democrat in Congress. She has two years to solidify her seat with good constituent services and high-functioning offices near her voter base in Antioch and Murfreesboro. About 15,000 more votes could have flipped three more seats for fellow Democratic candidates Justin Pearson, Darden Copeland and Mike Croley.

“We got greedy,” one high-ranking Republican tells the Scene, asking for anonymity to speak candidly about his party. “We should have conceded one seat, and we’re damn lucky we didn’t lose more. Every party that gets total domination gets greedy. It eventually comes back to bite you.”

Many Democrats are frustrated that their party didn’t take advantage of the uniquely powerful political moment. No state Senate seats flipped under caucus leader London Lamar, who invested caucus funds primarily in her own seat.

“The House Democratic Caucus ran a remarkably effective campaign this cycle, and it shows what’s possible,” says state Sen. Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville). “But the rest of our party left real opportunities on the table: in the state Senate, in three other congressional races, and in the governor’s race. With real party investment, those seats could have flipped.”

Democrats’ success — and the mass abandonment of Republicans across the country — has already scared party leaders enough to jeopardize state GOP Chair Scott Golden, who is up for reelection at a Dec. 5 meeting of the state executive committee. Golden came into power weeks after Trump’s 2016 victory and has kept the Tennessee GOP in lockstep with the president’s politics and administration since. After rallying with the president in Clarksville on Oct. 10, Blackburn did not mention Trump in her victory speech — voters rejected the president at the polls, and the party’s divorce from Trump can now happen fast or slow. Either way, it will be painful for a generation of Tennessee Republicans who built their careers with loyalty to Trump. 

Blackburn’s proximity to D.C. nearly cost Republicans Tennessee’s biggest election upset in decades. Green deserves credit for a tireless counter-campaign with hundreds of events from Johnson City to Memphis. But Green finished just 53,000 votes (about 2.5 percentage points) from victory thanks to the unexpected popularity of independent David Hatley, a self-funding conservative out of Johnson City who drew nearly 200,000 ballots. Republicans’ expected vote total dropped by about the same number.

Republicans now worry that Blackburn’s wavering popularity could tank the party further. The senator has already shown a willingness to bend public regulations for political gain and forecasted corporate handouts and debts to special interests in her victory speech. Her Senate operations and campaigns run through strategist Ward Baker and his outfit The Baker Group, which will have this governor’s favor for four years — both Baker and Blackburn have direct financial ties to unpopular Tennessee behemoths like Advance Financial and CoreCivic, respectively angling for relaxed regulations and more solid government contracts.

Blackburn specifically vowed to recruit the defense industry and big tech moments after (or truly, even before) winning the governor’s mansion. It would follow for Baker and his staff to file new lobbying registrations this year with clients like Google, Meta, Oracle, Anthropic, Microsoft or Anduril, especially with recently elected Democrats in Ohio and Texas limiting data center construction. 

Tennessee suddenly became competitive on Nov. 3, when voters proved that a two-decade loyalty to Republicans is contingent. Close votes opened a door for both parties to maneuver. Republicans need to win back voters’ trust with a better national brand that has two years to move beyond Trump, while Democrats finally have the chance to go on offense.

Correction: A previous version of this story noted that Victoria Broderick won Tennessee's 6th Congressional District seat. Broderick won in the 4th. We apologize for the error.