For a certain set of Nashvillians, nothing speaks louder than West End real estate. The historic connector between Belle Meade and downtown has always commanded upmarket prices — and with them an air of importance. While the city’s recent booms have largely struck formerly low-rent districts like 12South and Germantown, you can’t move a road, and West End’s convenience still draws gridlocked inbound and outbound traffic, making its storefronts equal parts billboard.
Earlier this summer, the Nashville Republican Women moved quickly to secure an election season headquarters at West End’s former Civic Bank & Trust branch. The nearby intersection funnels traffic from Sylvan Park, Green Hills and two I-440 exits, drawing eyeballs from the western half of Davidson County. In the first few days of August, the lawn spawned yard signs and banners for all Republican candidates who safely survived their primaries. The group appears resourceful, organized and committed, and the space itself is a testament to the group’s logistical command.
“After six or seven drafts of the lease, it happened,” said NRW president Mary Obersteadt during her introductory remarks at the group’s Aug. 14 meeting. “It took a long time, but I can tell you, this place came as is — in other words, no air conditioning. But the location, the visibility, the square footage far outweighs the cons. I’ve been asked, ‘How can we afford it?’ Well, we really can’t. But I have a lot of faith that we can sell lots and lots of T-shirts, hats, flags, jewelry, headscarves, koozies, Trump flags, socks and bumper stickers. We’re gonna make it. It’s a prime place for every Republican candidate in Nashville and Davidson County to put their signs and literature. This is for the candidates.”
Polite applause rippled through the audience. The sea of gold jewelry and patterned floral dresses, most of them red, suggested a camaraderie among the group closer to a social club than a political faction. Individual packed lunches had been ordered beforehand and, midway through the speaking lineup, moved through each row of folding chairs. About 20 rows faced a makeshift stage at one end of the bank lobby, part of which had been converted into a booth for Trump-branded merchandise and apparel.
Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett headlined the event. Just before lunchtime, he delivered a conversational lecture on why Tennessee’s voting security has been emulated and praised throughout the nation.
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Voting access was one of the few political issues broached by the group. The others — immigration and transgender athletes in sports — formed a trifecta of fear, stoked anew with regular anecdotal comments about violent acts committed around the country by immigrants. Reproductive rights, a central organizing plank for the Davidson County Democratic Women since Dobbs v. Jackson overturned abortion protections, did not come up.
Hargett, the state’s top elections official, walked a narrow line during his speech. He repeatedly affirmed members’ fears about election security, particularly conspiracies about voter fraud and ballot harvesting, spread by Donald Trump after his 2020 presidential election loss. Republicans, including Hargett, have seized on methods of expanded voting access — like ballot drop boxes and mail-in voting — as sources of voter fraud, attempting to pass isolated incidents or circumstantial conjecture as evidence.
Early in his speech, Hargett explained a recent barrage of mail sent to certain residents questioning their voter eligibility.
“Recently we discovered that there are many people who may potentially be noncitizens on our voter rolls,” Hargett said. “Maybe. We don’t know. So we decided we’re going to mail a letter to these 14,375 people. So now we have put anybody who is a noncitizen on our voter rolls on notice that noncitizen voting is a felony in the state of Tennessee, and if you vote illegally, we’re going to work with law enforcement officials to make sure you’re prosecuted.”
Hargett also reminded the room that the state offers $1,000 for reporting voter fraud that leads to a conviction. Hargett introduced the bounty system in 2020. In the past 10 years, Tennessee has won three cases of ineligible voting, two of which related to voting by individuals with prior felony convictions. Unprovoked, Hargett assured the room that Tennessee’s air-gapped voting system means there is “no way somebody can get into that machine through some server in Venezuela, Iran or North Korea.”
Hargett then helped the room conceptualize a hypothetical voter-fraud scheme perpetrated by Democrats.
“I want you to imagine this,” he said. “If we allow ballot harvesting in the state of Tennessee, a bunch of Gloria Johnson supporters are going out, and they’re knocking on doors and asking for ballots, and they’re looking down at the voter list and they see who the R’s are. They know who the likely Marsha Blackburn voters are, and they’re going around gathering ballots. Do you think they’re gonna turn those in? No, they wouldn’t turn those in. That’s why we don’t allow ballot harvesting and ballot trafficking in the state of Tennessee.”
With every hypothetical voting breach, Hargett emphasized Tennessee’s uniquely secure elections, assuring the room that the state has earned national acclaim for its election integrity. Hargett proudly cited Tennessee’s No. 1 ranking in election integrity from the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that developed Project 2025. Voting rights groups argue that the same choices earning Hargett top marks from Heritage — requiring extensive residency proof, purging voter lists and limiting absentee voting — have suppressed voter registration and participation, turning Tennessee into a voting desert and putting the state in last place for voter turnout.
