Chapter 12
Tennessee: From Democratic Dominance to Two Party Competitive Seesaw
Tennessee is another Rim South state that shares some of the political and racial experiences of other Rim South states. Only 16% of the state population is African American, which is the same as the average Rim South state, and which is approximately only half of the black population size of Deep South states. Consequently, as in other Rim South states, voting devices used to disfranchise African Americans were not as extensive as found in the Deep South. In common with all eleven southern states, Tennessee was affected by defeat in the Civil War and political turmoil during Reconstruction, and therefore normally voted Democratic. And as in certain other southern states, Democratic machines were powerful, as were dominant political personalities.
The uniqueness of Tennessee is that it historically had a strong minority Republican Party, centered in the mountain areas of eastern counties. While Rim South states like Florida and Virginia voted for GOP presidential candidates as many as four times before the 1965 Voting Rights Act and after Reconstruction, Tennessee backed the GOP a record five times. Furthermore, the state GOP was even able to elect three Republican governors after Reconstruction and before the 1960s. Also unique compared to most southern states though somewhat similar to Virginia, a partisan yo-yo ensued after the Civil Rights movement with Republicans scoring important advances, Democrats making a comeback in the 1980s, and Republicans surging back into a position of political advantage in the 1990s.
Throughout the civil rights era, disfranchisement of African Americans in Tennessee, as in other Rim South states, was not as total as in the Deep South. From 1940 through 1964, the proportion of African Americans registered to vote was higher than in the average southern state (Garrow 1978: 7, 11, 19; Key 1949: 523). Indeed, by 1958 black registration in Tennessee (48%) was higher than in any other southern state and nearly twice the regional average. Tennessee remained first among southern states in black registration in the early 1960s, and by 1964 only Florida with 64% of voting-age blacks registered to vote was within 10% of Tennessee’s region-leading 69% of registered African Americans (Garrow 1978: 19). However, reflecting the existence of two Democratic political machines and some mechanisms that discouraged public participation in politics, Tennessee during the first half of the 20th century was second only to Virginia in low voter turnout among people of both races (Key 1949: 493, 496, 505).
Turnout fell after the adoption of the poll tax in 1890, though less voting may also have reflected less political competition and a weakened Republican Party (Key 1949: 609). After all, Tennessee’s poll tax was only $1, it was non-cumulative, and it was payable up to the day before the primary, though 60 days before the general election (Key 1949: 581, 587). Furthermore, political operatives in some counties, such as labor leaders and the Memphis Crump machine, sought to bring their supporters to the polls by collecting the poll taxes from them beforehand (Key 1949: 590). Unlike all other southern states except for Florida and North Carolina, Tennessee lacked a white primary (Key 1949: 620). Also, unlike other southern states except for a few Rim South states, it had no literacy test (Key 1949: 558). Similar to other southern states, though, African Americans were much less likely to try to vote in rural areas than in the cities (Key 1949: 522).
Tennessee
consists of three distinct regions. East Tennessee is mountainous, where
slavery was unprofitable and repugnant to residents, where most residents
opposed secession from the Union, and consequently was a region where
Republicans were so strong that they controlled both of the region’s
congressional districts (Key 1949: 75-77). Even as late as the turn of the 21st
century, GOP presidential candidates remained strongest in the East Tennessee
region (Brodsky and Swansbrough 2002: 190). These mountain agrarians comprise a
more moderate faction of the state Republican Party, compared to the more
conservative faction that was historically centered in urban areas and
sympathetic to business interests (Key 1949: 80). After Reconstruction,
Tennessee Republicans were able to elect a one-term governor, Alvin Hawkins in 1880, two-term governor Ben
Hooper in 1910, and finally one-term governor Alfred Taylor in 1920, whereupon
Democrats from two political machines dominated gubernatorial elections until
the last three decades of the 20th century (see: http://www.state.tn.us/sos/bluebook/online/conofficers.pdf).
Memphis and west Tennessee as well as Nashville and middle Tennessee were both slave-owning regions, which supported the Confederacy, and were historically bastions of the Democratic Party. During the first half of the 20th century, political machines arose out of both regions (Key 1949: 59). From 1922 until 1932, Luke Lea’s Nashville Democratic machine elected governors, such as Austin Peay who was elected to multiple gubernatorial terms (Key 1949: 64, 70). From 1933 until 1948, four consecutive governors- Harry McAlister, Gordon Browning, Prentice Cooper, and Jim McCord- were elected with support from the E.H. Crump Democratic machine of Memphis (Key 1949: 62, 64, 66). During this fifteen-year period, Crump’s machine was supported by many conservative elements and was unsympathetic toward the CIO labor union, though like other urban political machines it did distribute “largesse to the poor and downtrodden” (Key 1949: 64 quote, 80). Elements of Lea’s old machine comprised part of the anti-Crump faction of the Democratic Party, which was strongest in Middle Tennessee, and backed by the CIO and labor more generally (Key 1949: 70, 72-74). Anti-Crump candidates won the 1948 U.S. senate race and two gubernatorial elections (Estes Kefauver was elected senator, and a Gordon Browning now on the outs with Crump won the governorship in 1948 and was reelected in 1950), and Crump himself died in 1953. Nevertheless, Frank Clement and Buford Ellington were backed by his organization and between them alternated as governors for 18 years beginning in the 1952 election and lasting until a Republican won the 1970 election (Key 1949: 58, 71; Bass and Devries 1977: 288; see Website: http://www.state.tn.us/sos/bluebook/online/conofficers.pdf).
Governor Frank Clement was the first of three dominant Democratic personalities of the 1950s and 1960s, the other two being progressive U.S. Senators. On the campaign stump Clement would electrify crowds as a “scripture-quoting, spellbinding orator” and close his speeches by asking his audience to “join hands and sing with him” as his campaign’s sound truck played his theme song, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” (Bass and DeVries 1977: 289). Despite the support of the Crump machine, Clement as governor took a number of progressive positions. He raised the sales tax to increase education funding, and provided free textbooks in all public elementary and secondary grades. He also promoted more road construction as an economic development measure, linking all major cities through the interstate highway system. Clement also enacted reforms in mental health and state purchasing procedures. A racial moderate, he even employed the National Guard to uphold a federal school desegregation order (Bass and DeVries 1977: 289).
The more progressive, anti-Crump faction of the Democratic Party achieved more success in U.S. senate rather than gubernatorial elections, starting in 1948. That year, 5-term congressman Estes Kefauver, a supporter of the New Deal, was elected to the senate with the votes of blacks, liberals, labor, small farmers, and lower income urban whites (Bass and DeVries 1977: 290). Blasted by boss Crump who likened him to a pet coon who used “cunning” to “deceive” people, and who accused him of being a “darling of the Communists,” Kefauver proceeded to campaign with a coonskin cap, the “honorable badge of the pioneer,” and proudly conceded that if he was a pet coon, “he was not Crump’s pet coon” (Key 1949: 58). A folksy campaigner known among constituents as “old Estes,” Kefauver had the support of the “common man,” who valued his “honesty and courage” (Bass and DeVries 1977: 291). Senator Kefauver was both a liberal and a maverick willing to take on the political powers. His liberal nature was evident in his support for civil rights and refusal to sign the 1956 segregationist Southern Manifesto, his support for the United Nations, and his opposition to communist witch hunter U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy (Bass and DeVries 1977: 290-291). His independent maverick nature was evident in his chairing of a special senate committee to investigate organized crime in America, a committee that he aggressively led despite discovering a linkage between many big city Democratic machines and organized crime, thereby demonstrating an independence from blind party loyalty that cost him the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952 (Keech and Matthews 1977: 43-44). This dominant personality of Kefauver’s propelled him to two reelections despite opponents’ “vicious campaigns heavy with racism and the message that he somehow was a Communist sympathizer,” and he finally died in 1963 (Bass and DeVries 1977: 291).
In 1952 the anti-Crump faction was successful in unseating 82-year old Senator Kenneth McKeller, a “junior partner” of the Crump machine, with “populist” Congressman Al Gore Sr. (Key 1949: 63, 1st quote; Bass and DeVries 1977: 288, 2nd quote). Gore saw himself as a fighter for the “little man” as he backed liberal New Deal and Great Society programs, such as Social Security, Medicare, federal education and antipoverty programs, and the TVA and Appalachia programs (Bass and DeVries 1977: 295). More controversial among his white constituents, he opposed the Southern Manifesto and the Vietnam War, came to favor civil rights measures, and voted against two of President Nixon’s southern conservative nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court (Bass and DeVries 1977: 291, 295). Re-elected twice to the Senate, Gore Sr., the father of Democratic presidential candidate in 2000 Al Gore, was finally unseated by a Republican in 1970.
These three Democratic giants of the 1950s and 1960s, one governor and two senators, one organization man and two progressive mavericks, illustrated how ideologically inclusive the historically ruling Democratic Party was. Yet throughout this time it faced a growing challenge from the strong minority Republican Party. Throughout the 20th century, the GOP was able to gain a majority of votes in presidential elections in the eastern part of the state, and made important electoral gains among white rural residents in West Tennessee, thereby making that region competitive, though Middle Tennessee remained a Democratic stronghold (Greene and Holmes 1972: 177; Swansbrough and Brodsky 1988: 79-80). Furthermore, Tennessee’s Republican Party was ideologically diverse enough to offer electorally attractive “progressive” conservatives as well as staunch conservatives. Ideological and factional divisions within the Democratic Party, coupled with GOP political pragmatism, ushered in important Republican victories for major offices in the decade of the 1970s.
The significant Republican victories of the 1970s, which for a short period even gave them simultaneous control of the governorship and both of the state’s U.S. senate seats, were ushered in by the voluntary and involuntary departure of three Democratic titans from the political scene, and by bitter divisions within the ruling Democratic Party. Senator Kefauver’s death set up a tough primary battle in 1964 for the two years remaining in his term, a battle in which 5-term Congressman Ross Bass, “a liberal whose voting record paralleled Kefauver’s,” upset Governor Clement (Bass and DeVries 1977: 293). In the 1966 race for a full term, the two faced off once again in the Democratic primary with Republican crossover vote helping Clement to defeat Senator Bass, whose votes “on civil rights issues had alienated conservatives” and who was “clearly the Negroes’ favorite” candidate (Bass and DeVries 1977: 294 1st quote; Greene and Holmes 1972: 183 2nd quote).
In the 1966 general election, Republicans elected their first U.S. senator since Reconstruction, East Tennessee attorney Howard Baker, a traditional mountain Republican whose father had served in Congress and whose father-in-law was U.S. Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen from Illinois. The mild mannered and soft-spoken Baker was a racial moderate and economic conservative, who possessed a “first-class intellect and personal honesty” that went with his “boyish good looks and charm” (Bass and DeVries 1977: 293). Many voters saw the attractive Baker as a “new, fresh face on the scene,” compared to Clement, who “came over as a tarnished, old-line politician” (Barone, Ujifusa, and Matthews 1972: 756). Republicans also benefited from a white backlash against the increasing identification of the Democratic Party with civil rights. Indeed, Baker’s 56% popular vote victory included a two-thirds vote margin in lower income white areas in West Tennessee (Lamis 1990: 166).
As senator, Baker compiled a moderate conservative voting record and left office so respected that his colleagues had voted him Majority Leader when President Reagan’s 1980 landslide swept in a GOP-controlled senate. Examples of his integrity and his progressive exceptions to his basic conservatism included his support for a 1967 fair housing bill and for extending the Voting Rights Act in 1970, and his role in helping to bring down GOP President Nixon during the Watergate scandal by constantly asking as a member of the Senate Watergate Committee, “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” (Ehrenhalt 1983: 1402 quote, 1403-1404). Baker won a landslide reelection with 62% of the vote in 1972 over moderate conservative Democratic congressman Ray Blanton, a George Wallace supporter, and with his racially moderate record the Republican senator attracted over one-third of the vote among urban blacks (Lamis 1990: 165, 167, 169; Barone, Ujifusa, and Matthews 1972: 771). Baker won his second and last reelection in 1978 with 56% of the vote over Nashville “liberal” Jane Erskine’s 40%, as his Democratic opponent’s move towards the right by criticizing Baker’s support for President Carter’s Panama Canal Treaty failed to reduce the Senator’s great popularity among voters (Lamis 1990: 173; Ehrenhalt 1983: 1404 quote). In addition to his Watergate committee service and Majority Leadership position, Baker won national recognition by being elected Senate Minority Republican Leader by his peers in 1977 and unsuccessfully challenging Ronald Reagan for the party nomination for President three years later.
Democratic U.S. Senator Al Gore Sr. was involuntarily retired from political life by the voters in 1970 after three terms in office, as he was upset by 51-47% of the vote by conservative Republican Congressman Bill Brock. The liberal Gore had backed civil rights and opposed the Vietnam War and the nomination of two southerners to the Supreme Court, as well as opposed President Nixon’s anti-ballistic missile system. Gore barely survived his own party primary, winning only 51% of the vote over a challenge from Crump faction governor Ellington’s former press secretary. General election challenger Brock was a Chattanooga businessman who had been drawn into GOP campaign politics by the Eisenhower and Nixon presidential bids and been elected in 1962 to represent East Tennessee’s third congressional district. The GOP congressman was so conservative that he had even voted against the Appalachian program and Medicare, and he proceeded to accuse Gore of being too liberal and out of step with Tennessee on the issues of race, busing, the Vietnam War, gun control, and school prayer. Indeed, Brock supporters would even refer to Gore as being “the third senator from Massachusetts,” a devastating and prophetic charge since in two years Massachusetts would become the only state in the nation to support liberal Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern (Barone, Ujifusa, and Matthews 1972: 757 quote, 756; Bass and DeVries 1977: 296-297; Lamis 1990: 168; Nelson 2007: 193). As U.S. senator for one term, Brock maintained his conservative voting record, tempered with his support for procedural reform in the senate, his opposition to raising food stamp prices during a recession, his counseling of fellow Republicans to build the party around economic and not racial issues, and his reputation for rapid responses to calls from constituents about problems (Bass and DeVries 1977: 303-304).
Republicans also picked up the governorship in 1970, the year after former governor Clement died. Democrats nominated a “liberal-leaning lawyer” John J. Hooker, “who was compared in style and philosophy to his friends the Kennedys” (Lamis 1990: 168 1st quote; Bass and DeVries 1977: 294, 2nd quote). Hooker, though gaining considerable black support, had lost the gubernatorial primary four years earlier to Crump-backed former Governor Ellington, and his closest Democratic opponent in the 1970 primary refused to endorse him (Bass and DeVries 1977: 294, 296; Greene and Holmes 1972: 183). Handicapped by winning a mere 45% of the primary vote (Tennessee lacks a runoff primary provision) and by a divided party as well as by an SEC investigation into his business problems, Hooker lost the governorship with 46% of the vote to Republican Winfield Dunn’s 52% (Bass and DeVries 1977: 296; Lamis 1990: 169). Dunn, active in GOP party affairs for a decade, was also advantaged by being a “moderate and attractive candidate” who “generated enthusiasm and a heavy turnout, particularly in his home area of Memphis” (Bass and DeVries 1977: 297 quotes; Lamis 1990: 168). Indeed, both Dunn and Brock had been successful in expanding their party’s historic East Tennessee base to several cities and counties in West Tennessee (Nelson 2007: 195). A progressive governor, Dunn raised taxes, established a statewide kindergarten program, expanded housing opportunities for the low and middle income, promoted prison decentralization, removed politics from the promotion process of the state police, and established the state’s first Department of Economic and Community Development (Bass and DeVries 1977: 301; Ashford and Locker 1999: 196; Lyons, Scheb, and Stair 2001: 113).
Democrats staged a comeback in the mid-1970s, temporarily winning back the governorship in 1974 and recovering Brock’s senate seat in 1976. Stunned by the Republican capture of the top three offices in Tennessee, Democrats quickly unified behind their gubernatorial nominee, Ray Blanton, despite his mere 23% primary vote victory in a crowded field. Former senator Gore introduced Blanton at a state unity meeting of party leaders, and the one African American candidate in the party primary endorsed him at a unity luncheon. Blanton, a former “redneck” congressman who had compiled a moderate conservative voting record, proceeded to meet with labor leaders and blacks, to gain an AFL-CIO endorsement, and to campaign with black congressional candidate, Harold Ford, who was also victorious in November (Bass and DeVries 1977: 302-303; Barone, Ujifusa, and Matthews 1972: 771). Winning 56% of the popular vote in the general election, Blanton’s campaign stressed economic issues, such as opposing high interest rates and any limiting of retail discount sales, and “made a populist pitch against banks and insurance companies” (Bass and DeVries 1977: 302). His opponent Lamar Alexander, a lawyer who despite serving as Governor Dunn’s campaign manager came across as a “stuffy country club Republican” in his own initial campaign, was hurt during this Watergate scandal election year by his having worked in the Nixon White House (Lamis 1990: 174 quote; Bass and DeVries 1977: 302). As governor, Blanton recruited foreign industry and trade, elevated the tourism department to the cabinet level, and emphasized tax relief for senior citizens, though he left office under a cloud of scandals (see Website: http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php?EntryID=B049).
Democrats scored a more lasting comeback with their defeat of Senator Brock in 1976. Nashville lawyer and former Democratic state party chair Jim Sasser defeated 1970 gubernatorial loser Hooker for the senatorial nomination, and went on to upset Brock in the general election with 53% of the vote. As Brock proclaimed his conservative philosophy of limited government and low taxes, Sasser accused him of being a “special-interest senator” who only cared about banks, insurance companies, oil companies, and the AMA (Lamis 1990: 170). The incumbent was also dogged by questions about his integrity, as one of his protégés had been “involved in a minor Nixon dirty trick,” he himself was “financially interested in a land development scheme under attack for false advertising,” and Democrats blasted him for not disclosing his income tax records and for having legally paid no income taxes in one year (Barone, Ujifusa, and Matthews 1977: 791). Perhaps most important was that Democrats, angry over Brock’s negative campaign against former senator Gore, united to defeat him (Bass and DeVries 1977: 303). With the passage of emotional issues like race and Vietnam from the political scene, and able to run on the same ticket as a moderate southerner for President, Jimmy Carter, Sasser won back critical west Tennessee counties as had Blanton two years earlier (Lamis 1990: 169, 171).
That the 1970s was basically a period of growing Republicanism is reflected in Lamar Alexander’s easy gubernatorial victory with 56% of the vote in 1978 and his landslide reelection four years later with 60%. Democrats in 1978 were hamstrung by a bitter primary that produced a wealthy banker nominee, Jake Butcher, whose rapid acquisition of money and “lavish campaign spending” caused some public suspicion (Lamis 1990: 174). Democrats were also hurt by widespread public “revulsion with the scandal-plagued Blanton administration,” where allegations against the outgoing Democratic governor even included the selling of “pardons to violent criminals” (Nelson 2007: 198). Alexander quickly shedded his country-club image of four years earlier as he cast himself as “a working man,” and became most known for donning a “red and black checked shirt” and proceeding to walk 1,000 miles across Tennessee as he met and listened to average people (Lamis 1990: 174). After several staff members were convicted of selling pardons and the state Parole Board began issuing questionable pardons in Blanton’s last days in office, Democratic legislative leaders rushed to swear in the next governor, Republican Lamar Alexander, three days early (see Website:
http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php?EntryID=B049; Lyons, Scheb, and Stair 2001: 338).
As governor, Alexander got enacted the largest sales tax increase in state history to fund his Better Schools initiatives, which raised elementary and secondary teachers’ salaries and also significantly increased funding for higher education. His Master Teacher program took on the powerful teachers’ lobby by providing for the evaluation of teachers’ performance, so that additional raises could be provided to the top teachers (Lyons, Scheb, and Stair 2001: 270-271, 367). Making industrial recruitment a real priority, Alexander used all of the state’s resources to develop attractive bids to offer companies to locate in Tennessee, and was able to score such coups as new Nissan and General Motors’ Saturn plants (Lyons, Scheb, and Stair 2001: 114-115). The Republican chief executive also promoted tourism by publicizing the heritages of localities, established centers and chairs of excellence in higher education, and enacted road building and prison construction programs (Ashford and Locker 1999: 201, 204; see website: http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net).
In his 1982 landslide reelection, Alexander defeated Democratic mayor of Knoxville, Randy Tyree, who had proudly proclaimed that Democrats were the party of such luminaries as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John Kennedy, Presidents who had given to average citizens Social Security, Medicare, and education aid. Tyree contrasted these Democratic supporters of the common man with Republicans, whom he accused of cutting these very same programs and ushering in a recession with high unemployment. The Republican governor wisely shied away from potentially unpopular national issues and instead talked about state issues and his accomplishments as governor, such as landing the Nissan plant and developing a technology corridor near Oak Ridge (Lamis 1990: 175-177).
Democrats scored a comeback in the decade of the 1980s, reelecting Senator Sasser in 1982 and 1988, capturing the second senate seat in 1984 with Al Gore’s son, and winning back the governorship in 1986 from a term limited incumbent. Senator Sasser gave his opponent in 1982 few issues, as he maintained a moderate voting record in his first six years as senator with a conservative ACA score nearly as high as his liberal ADA ratings (Ehrenhalt 1985: 1433). Nevertheless, five term GOP congressman Robin Beard, who had compiled a conservative voting record, blasted Sasser as a liberal on busing, abortion, school prayer, and foreign aid, prompting the Democrat to support a school prayer measure in the senate during the fall campaign. In any event, with Sasser getting a 22-month head start on making personal appearances across the state to enhance his personal popularity, and with a recession settling in under a Republican presidency, social issues became less important than economics and Sasser breezed to a 62% reelection landslide (Lamis 1990: 174-175; Barone and Ujifusa 1981: 1042).
Sasser won an even greater 65% landslide in 1988, defeating GOP lawyer Bill Anderson. Outspending the challenger by a margin of 5-to-1, Sasser stressed his seniority and influence by reminding voters that he was the upcoming chair of the Senate Budget Committee, and blasted his opponent’s inexperience which was reflected in the progressive Republican proposing 67 new programs which would allegedly cost an estimated $152 billion dollars (Brodsky and Swansbrough 1991: 209-210; Duncan 1989: 1391). One warning sign for Democrats for the next decade, though, was Sasser’s increasingly liberal voting record in the Senate. From a moderate posture up through his first reelection in 1982, his record moved leftward to a moderate liberal position up through 1986, whereupon it took a decided turn to a liberal position. After 1986, Sasser’s scores from the conservative ACU were always below 20, and most of the time his ratings from the liberal ADA were above 80 (Duncan 1993: 1405).
Democrats picked up Tennessee’s second U.S. senate seat in 1984 with 4-term moderate liberal congressman Al Gore Jr. winning a landslide 61% of the vote to Republican state senator Victor Ashe’s 34% (Ehrenhalt 1983: 1425). Unable to entice a stronger candidate to challenge the son of a prominent former U.S. senator in a state where voters exhibited “a deferential attitude toward ‘an established elite’,” Republicans were unable to even find a willing congressman, and ended up offered a state senator who lacked “a statewide reputation” (Nelson 2007: 200). The Republican sacrificial cow repeatedly sought to link Gore to liberal national Democrats such as Ted Kennedy and that year’s Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale, while heir-apparent Gore talked about his efforts as a congressman to solve the problems of the people in Tennessee (Lamis 1990: 259). Depicting himself as a “raging moderate” and “keeping a healthy distance from the national ticket,” Gore recited his House work on baby formula nutritional standards, arms control, and toxic waste cleanup, and pointed out that President Reagan had signed three bills that he had cosponsored, including one strengthening penalties on repeat criminal offenders (Ashford and Locker 1999: 199 quotes; Duncan 1991: 1384).
For the next six years as senator, Gore maintained a moderate liberal voting record, and held annual open meetings for constituents in every county (Duncan 1991: 1385; Ashford and Locker 1999: 203). In Gore’s reelection race in 1990, Republicans were only able to put up a former economics instructor who raised less than $12,000 compared to the incumbent’s over $2 million warchest, and Gore swept every county on the way to a 68% vote total to his opponent’s 30% (Ashford and Locker 1999: 204). One anomaly to Gore’s ability to connect with average Tennesseans was his vigorous campaigning in thirty states for the Dukakis presidential ticket two years earlier, a ticket that won only 42% of the vote in Tennessee (Brodsky and Swansbrough 1991: 207).
Democrats won back the governorship in 1986 with a “folksy conservative” state house speaker and 18-year legislative veteran from rural west Tennessee, Ned McWherter, who defeated former governor Winfield Dunn with 54% of the vote (Ashford and Locker 1999: 196). McWherter as house speaker had established a reputation as a fiscal conservative, as he and his Finance Committee chairman ensured that budgets were balanced without gimmicks and on-time, as well as discouraging excessive use of bond bills by requiring that the first year’s debt service be paid up-front, and strengthening the state’s pension fund by limiting special interest legislation (Lyons, Scheb, and Stair 2001: 67). The wily Democrat had spent the previous eight years amassing political IOUs by making speaking engagements across the state and by supporting numerous Democratic candidates. The year before the election McWherter began amassing a campaign warchest to discourage strong opponents, and visiting every county in the state to build a campaign organization (Lyons, Scheb, and Stair 2001: 242).
McWherter consequently had no trouble preempting any GOP effort to tag him as a liberal. Indeed, his conservative image was burnished by having to defeat in the Democratic primary a “progressive,” “labor Democrat” Richard Fulton and a “wealthy liberal” Jane Eskind, the latter having ties to African American Harold Ford’s Memphis organization (Ashford and Locker 1999: 196, all 3 quotes). Furthermore, his “traditional southern folksiness” demeanor and “He’s one of us” campaign slogan played well among rural whites (Ashford and Locker 1999: 197). Democrats were so eager to regain the governor’s mansion that they even organized a “unity” bus tour with McWherter accompanied by both of the Democrats that he had defeated in the primary, along with both of Tennessee’s U.S. senators and Congressman Harold Ford, with Ford and Eskind even escorting him around various black churches in Memphis (Ashford and Locker 1999: 196-197). Republican Dunn suffered such campaign setbacks as reports that he had legally paid no federal income tax in two years, news that he was a member of an exclusive country club, and political fallout from his refusal when governor to support a medical school in east Tennessee (Lamis 1990: 291; Swansbrough and Brodsky 1988: 79; Ashford and Locker 1999: 196).
Ned McWherter in his first term as governor built more prisons, provided more housing and health care for the poor, reduced government waste and increased efficiency, built more roads, and improved teacher pay (Ashford and Locker 1999: 199, 201-202). He accomplished the difficult balancing act of pleasing conservatives and the business community while receiving backing from the state teacher’s association and organized labor (Ashford and Locker 1999: 201, 219-220). Facing a GOP first term state representative who had declared bankruptcy a decade ago and whose radio station had failed to file corporate tax returns for four years, McWherter outspent his opponent 7-to-1 and won a landslide 61% to Republican Dwight Henry’s 37% (Ashford and Locker 1999: 202-203). In his second term as governor, McWherter backed a half-cent sales tax increase to fund a major education reform program that included smaller class sizes, more assistance to small school districts, and greater use of technology in the classroom (Lyons, Scheb, and Stair 2001: 300-303; Ashford and Locker 1999: 204-205). He also developed an innovative TennCare program that reduced the number of medically uninsured Tennesseans by expanding state coverage to the working poor and mandating a system of managed care (Lyons, Scheb, and Stair 2001: 320-322). McWherter’s two-term governorship is also known for a tremendous expansion of prison construction and for directing new industry to rural areas with high unemployment rates, as well as a half-hearted and unsuccessful effort to institute a state income tax (Lyons, Scheb, and Stair 2001: 120, 342, 368).
The Democratic resurgence of the 1980s left them with the governorship and with both of the state’s senate seats for the last half of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. Yet the seeds of a Republican renewal were already planted. State Democrats like Senator Al Gore were willing to embrace the liberal national Democratic ticket, and Gore’s resignation after being elected President Clinton’s Vice President in 1992 gave the GOP a chance to regain one senate seat. Furthermore, Senator Sasser had moved toward the ideological left, making him vulnerable to a GOP charge that he had lost touch with average Tennesseans. The governorship since 1970 had never been held by the same party for more than eight years, and Democrat McWherter was soon to be term limited after his second, four-year term. The final nail in the coffin of Democratic officeholders was that by 1992 the numbers of Republican party identifiers in the general population was virtually identical to the numbers of Democrats. These pro-GOP trends would all come together in the year 1994, a year when Republicans benefited from a national “tsunami” that swept them into control of both houses of Congress for the first time in forty years.
Democrats began stumbling when Governor McWherter nominated his staff member, Harlan Matthews, to serve as a caretaker to hold Gore’s senatorial seat until the special election, thereby denying his party any incumbency advantage going into the election since the politically unknown Matthews had never run for public office and was not a senatorial candidate. Democrats nominated 6-term congressman Jim Cooper, whose moderate liberal voting record included such non-liberal positions as support for the death penalty and opposition to President Clinton’s universal health care plan, positions that alienated Democratic liberals (Duncan 1993: 1419; Ashford and Locker 1999: 207, 212). Republicans nominated Fred Thompson, an actor and lawyer, who proceeded to relate to average voters by donning “blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a western-style khaki shirt,” and traveling in a “red extended-cab pickup truck” (Ashford and Locker 1999: 211). Skillfully exploiting the national mood of public dissatisfaction with Congress, Thompson called for “a good housecleaning in Congress,” and endorsed term limits for congress members and a cut in their salaries as he rolled on to a 61% landslide victory to fill the two years remaining in Gore’s seat (Ashford and Locker 1999: 213 quote, 212).
Republicans in 1994 also had their eye on Senator Sasser’s seat, especially in view of how his voting record had shifted to a liberal orientation. Republican challenger Bill Frist, a Nashville heart surgeon, proceeded to blast Sasser as “an out-of-touch, old-fashioned, big-spending liberal,” promising to defeat the Democrat and “to transplant that bleeding heart liberal” (Ashford and Locker 1999: 209). Outspending the incumbent by a 2-1 margin, Frist won big among white Christian conservatives, and among gun owners angered by Sasser’s support for a ban on assault weapons, which had earned him the enmity of the NRA and its president, actor Charleston Heston. Even Sasser’s boasting of his clout in Washington and his expected ascension to the Senate Democratic Leadership position struck many voters as “business-as-usual in Washington,” and Frist went on to unseat the incumbent with 56% of the vote to Sasser’s 42% (Ashford and Locker 1999: 210 quote; Duncan and Lawrence 1995: 1215, 1527). In the wake of the national GOP landslide “tsunami,” one network announcer proclaimed the twin Democratic senate defeats in Tennessee immediately after a commercial break as: “A double killing in Tennessee!”
These twin GOP victories marked a dramatic shift in the state’s senatorial voting records from the liberal Sasser and the moderate liberal Gore to conservative records by both Thompson and Frist, who nearly always received ratings above 80 by the conservative ACU and ratings below 20 by the liberal ADA. Both Republicans, though, did show some signs of moderation in office with Frist even being elevated by his peers to the Senate Majority Leadership position (Nutting and Stern 2001: 929, 931; Ashford and Locker 1999: 220). Thompson went on to gain reelection to a full term in 1996, winning 61% of the vote to 37% for Democratic lawyer J. Houston Gordon, who had little name visibility since he had never run for public office and was outspent by the incumbent by over a 4-1 margin (Duncan and Lawrence 1997: 1331; Swansbrough and Brodsky 1997: 188, 192). Senator Frist also went on to an easy reelection, winning 65% of the vote to Democrat Jeff Clark’s 32% in his 2000 race. Frist, who spent $6.1 million, vastly outpaced his challenger, a computer science professor and former state Democratic Party treasurer, who spent only $273,406 (Brodsky and Swansbrough 2002: 192; Nutting and Stern 2001: 930, 1153).
Tennessee Democrats actually suffered a “triple killing” in 1994, as they also lost the governor’s mansion. Republicans elected 6-term conservative congressman Don Sundquist with 54% of the gubernatorial vote over Nashville mayor and health care millionaire Phil Bredesen’s 45% (Ashford and Locker 1999: 207-208; Duncan 1993: 1428). Bredesen ran as a moderate businessman who opposed taxes and supported the death penalty, thereby alienating some traditional Democratic groups such as state employees and trial lawyers. Some conservatives also pointed out that Bredesen had raised taxes as mayor of Nashville, and that the Democrat was pro-choice while Sundquist was pro-life. Ultimately, Sundquist was most benefited by “general voter anger at Democrats” in this first midterm election year under President Clinton (Ashford and Locker 1999: 214 quote, 213).
As governor, Sundquist enacted a Families First program that reformed welfare by requiring strict time limits on receiving benefits, eliminating additional benefits for having more kids, and providing child care and transportation assistance so that welfare recipients could find jobs (Lyons, Scheb, and Stair 2001: 317-318). He was also active in seeking to attract industries to the state, as he convinced the legislature to increase the incentives provided to companies to move their operations to Tennessee, and as he traveled to Asia and Europe in a personal effort to sell the state to foreign companies (Lyons, Scheb, and Stair 2001: 116, 120). Sundquist also convinced the legislature to replace an elected public service commission with an appointed Tennessee Regulatory Authority. He also enacted anti-crime measures that provided tougher sentences, fought domestic violence, provided for victims’ rights, and reformed capital punishment procedures (see website: http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net; Ashford and Locker 1999: 198). Sundquist breezed to a 69% reelection triumph in 1998 over Democrat John Jay Hooker’s 30%, as stronger Democrats declined to challenge the popular governor and Hooker was unable to mount “a serious challenge” (Mason 2003: 183). A second term Sundquist stunned conservatives by proposing tax reform that would have instituted a state income tax while slashing the high sales tax. Indeed, “virtual riots” broke out when a radio talk program spread the rumor that the legislature would consider instituting an income tax on a given afternoon, as “hundreds of antitax demonstrators emerged and windows were broken in the governor’s offices in the Capitol” (Mason 2003: 191 quotes; Lyons, Scheb, and Stair 2001: 368-372). Needless to say, Sundquist’s tax proposal went nowhere.
The two parties split contests for governor and U.S. senator in 2002. In the governor’s race to replace the term-limited governor, Democrat Phil Bredesen edged out with 51% of the vote 4-term conservative Republican congressman Van Hilleary who garnered 48% (Hawkings and Nutting 2003: 926; Nutting and Stern 2001: 939). Many Tennesseans regarded the businessman Bredesen as “conservative-leaning,” since he had opposed Sundquist’s proposed income tax (Swansbrough and Brodsky 2005: 204 quote; Nelson 2007: 207). In his eight years as the mayor of Nashville, Bredesen had led the city to a “best places in America to live, work, and raise a family” national rating, and his local tax hike was credited with improving public education by permitting the hiring of more teachers and the building of new schools (see website: http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php?EntryID=B121). The Democrat was also helped by “public dissatisfaction” with the outgoing Republican governor’s “inability to resolve the state’s continuing budget crisis” and by the strong negative public “reaction against Sundquist’s decision to support a state income tax as a possible solution” (Swansbrough and Brodsky 2005: 221). Indeed, state government faced the worst financial condition since the Great Depression, as teachers and state employees went years without pay raises, colleges went years with no funding increases, and the state’s bond rating was downgraded by financial leaders on Wall Street (Lyons, Scheb, and Stair 2001: 372-373). In Bredesen’s first term as governor, he established strong ethics rules for the executive branch, raised teachers’ salaries, and preserved health care for children in the state’s under-funded Medicaid program (Democratic governors' website accessed in 2006).
Republicans had a much easier time retaining the seat of retiring Senator Thompson in 2002, as popular former governor Lamar Alexander won 54% of the vote to moderate liberal 7-term congressman Bob Clement’s 44% (Nutting and Stern 2001: 941). Alexander had been known as the “Education Governor,” and he had gone on to the prestigious appointive positions of President of the University of Tennessee and then Secretary of Education under the first President Bush. As senator, Alexander pledged to fight for charter schools and for new money for school vouchers for low and middle-income families (Hawkings and Nutting 2003: 930-931). His roll call voting record is conservative, like that of other southern Republicans (Koszczuk and Stern 2005: 945). Alexander proceeded to win a landslide 2-1 reelection in 2008 over the former state Democratic party chairman, Bob Tuke.
Republicans in 2002 were also encouraged by winning 45% of the seats in both chambers of the state legislature, were delighted in 2004 by winning control of the state senate for the first time since Reconstruction (except for a one-year period in the mid-1990s due to a mid-session party switch), and were ecstatic after the 2008 elections over also gaining control of the state house (Ashford and Locker 1999: 215). One dampener on the GOP legislative victories was the senate’s reelection of 83-year-old Democrat John Wilder as Speaker of the Senate and consequently the state’s Lieutenant Governor, a post he had held since 1971. Wilder was such a bipartisan institution of the senate that he had had to form a coalition with Republicans after the 1986 elections to keep his leadership post, since most Democrats had wanted to dump him for being “insufficiently liberal, insufficiently partisan” (Ashford and Locker 1999: 199 quote, 200; Lyons, Scheb, and Stair 2001: 64). As usual, a reelected Wilder proceeded to appoint some GOP committee chairs, though more than usual given the party’s numerical majority. Republicans in 2005 were given majorities on seven of the nine standing committees and the chairmanships of four of them (Swansbrough and Brodsky 2005: 220). Two years later, Republicans unseated Wilder as Lieutenant Governor in favor of a fellow Republican (Stanley and French 2007).
The parties also split major contests in 2006, as Democrats easily reelected Phil Bredesen as governor over state senator Jim Bryson, and Republicans retained Frist’s seat with Bob Corker, a wealthy real estate developer and former mayor of Chattanooga. In endorsing the popular Democratic governor, the Tennessean credited Bredesen with turning the state’s economy around from the dark days when residents were threatened with a possible income tax, and with attracting new industry such as Nissan’s North American headquarters. It also praised the necessary cuts that he had made in the state’s health plan for the poor, TennCare, and his creation of a new health plan called Cover Tennessee (tennessean.com, 2006). Exit polls showed that the popular Democratic incumbent had created such a non-divisive, non-ideological image of his performance that he was able to win two-thirds of the votes of whites, half of self-identified conservatives, and even 42% backing among Republican identifiers (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/TN/G/00/epolls.0.html, accessed November 26, 2006). Bredesen won reelection with an impressive 69% of the vote to only 30% for the Republican challenger (http://www.tennessee.gov/sos/election/index.htm).
More controversial was the senate race, where Corker’s Democratic opponent was African American congressman, Harold Ford Jr., who had been elected in 1996 to the same seat held by his father for 22 years. Ford was a moderate liberal who sought to avoid the Liberal tag by highlighting his conservative and religious values, such as his opposition to gay rights, partial birth abortion, and illegal immigration (York, 2006). The Republican National Committee nevertheless ran a devastating ad that painted Ford as a liberal, as a string of respectable white citizens mocked his alleged liberal record by saying such things as, “Terrorists need their privacy,” “When I die, Harold Ford will let me pay taxes again,” “Ford’s right, I do have too many guns,” and “I’d love to pay higher marriage taxes.” Most controversial in possibly injecting race into the campaign was the inclusion of a bare shouldered attractive white female who bragged, “I met Harold at the Playboy party,” and who ended the ad by winking into the camera and saying, “Harold, call me.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjK1Ar4ksvY&feature=related, accessed April 5, 2011). While at first evasive about the charge that he had attended a Playboy Super Bowl Party, the handsome young black congressman finally quipped, “"I was there. I like football, and I like girls" (de la Cruz, 2006). Meanwhile, Corker desperately sought to divorce himself from the anti-Republican sentiment sweeping the nation because of the seemingly endless war in Iraq, as the Republican businessman stressed that he was “an accomplished, experienced Tennessean who would take Tennessee values to Washington” (Locker 2006: A4). Exit polls showed both candidates winning over 90% of the identifiers of their respective parties and splitting the Independents, so the slightly greater number of Republican than Democratic voters (38% versus 34%) proved the difference in helping Republicans keep this senate seat (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/TN/S/01/epolls.0.html; accessed November 26, 2006). Corker was able to pull out a squeaker, winning 51% of the total vote to Ford’s 48%.
The competitive nature of modern Tennessee elections, where two-term governorships had alternated between the two parties four times since 1978, was evident once again in the 2010 elections, as GOP Knoxville mayor, Bill Haslam, easily defeated former governor McWherter's son, Mike, a lawyer and businessman. In addition to stressing his governmental experience, "Haslam's folksy ads often emphasized his genial style," with one ad featuring a local restaurant owner praising the mayor's hard work but joking that "Haslam would occasionally sneak a piece of chocolate pie," with the ad's slogan concluding that "I just like him" (Sisk 2010). The Tennessean newspaper endorsed Haslam, praising his seven years of public service balancing budgets, his "listening tour" visiting all of the state's counties, his ability to work with Democrats and Independents as well as Republicans, and his commitment to building on his Democratic gubernatorial predecessor's education improvements (The Tennessean 2010). This year of the national GOP landslide also saw Republicans achieving historic highs of winning over 60% of each state legislative chamber's seats and 78% of the state's U.S. house seats.
The 2012 election, however, suggested that Tennessee was moving into
the GOP camp
in a big way, as Republicans won landslide victories in the presidency and
in
Senator Corker's reelection bid, retained their overwhelming control of
U.S. house seats, and achieved historic highs of controlling over 70% of
the seats in each chamber of the state legislature. Corker's over 2 to 1
landslide win over Democrat Mark Clayton, the Vice President of a
conservative advocacy group based out of Virginia which had sought to
restrict the teaching of gay issues in the state's public schools, came
after the Tennessee Democratic Party disavowed Clayton as being
"associated with a known hate group" as classified by the Southern Poverty
Law Center (Camia 2012).
The 2014 elections, held during a national GOP tsunami, marked another
good year for Republicans, as the party reelected Senator Alexander and
Governor Haslam with over 65% of the vote. Alexander was known for his
bipartisan approach, maintaining a conservative voting record while still
supporting universal health care access and the development of low-carbon
energy sources, and as a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee
he had brought much federal money to the TVA, Oak Ridge and to the state
generally in
the areas of science and technology education and research. Governor
Haslam
touted his record of "making Tennessee the No. 1 location in the
Southeast for high quality jobs," of a balanced budget every year, keeping
taxes and state debt low, and nearly doubling the state savings account,
while enacting Tennessee Promise in the 2014 legislative session, which
ensured high school graduates a
higher education certificate or degree "free of charge and with a personal
mentor" (http://www.tn.gov/governor/about.shtml). Facing these incumbents,
Democrats offered a 65-year-old trial lawyer in the senate race, and in
the gubernatorial race retiree Charlie Brown, a self-described "redneck
hillbilly" who wanted to "put this state first," and who so opposed the
governor's actions that he wrote a newspaper letter saying, "I under
stand that the governor has reinstated the electric chair to take care of
the prison on death row. After what he has done to my friends
in knox county, I would like to strap his butt to the chair and give him
about half the jolt" (Cass 2014). The 2016 elections reaffirmed that Republicans were now the dominant party
in Tennessee. Not only did Trump easily carry the state, but his 64% of the
two party vote was among the three highest totals in the South (equal to
GOP wins in Alabama and Arkansas). Furthermore, Republicans retained their
overwhelming advantages in the U.S. House delegation and both state
legislative chambers, retaining at least three-fourths of the seats in
each institution.
Republicans maintained their dominance in 2018 and 2020, winning the open Senate
and gubernatorial elections in 2018 fairly easily, largely because of the large
GOP party advantage among voters (44% of exit poll voters were Republicans,
and only 25% Democrats). Tea Party favorite and frequent Fox interviewee U.S. House
member Marsha Blackburn called herself a "hardcore, card-carrying Tennessee
conservative," backing Trump's border wall, the Kavanaugh nomination,
tax cuts, gun rights, and opposing abortion (Mattise 2018). Nationalizing the
Senate election,
she blasted former governor Democrat Phil Bredesen for backing Obama and
Hillary Clinton, and welcomed Trump and Mike Pence three times each to the
state to campaign for her (as well as five U.S. Senators, including
southerners Rubio, Graham, Cotton, and Tillis). Conservative businessman
and political newcomer Bill Lee visited all 95 counties in the state twice
in his RV on his "Believe in Tennessee" tour. Feeling "called to serve,"
he kept "his campaign positive" and pledged to "be the governor of every
Tennessean" as he easily bested the Democratic former two-term Nashville mayor
Karl Dean (Allison 2018). In 2020 Republican Bill Hagerty, the state's former Economic and Community Development Commissioner and Trump's former Ambassador to Japan, easily defeated an African American woman environmental justice activist, Marquita Bradshaw, who had been nominated with 36% of the vote over an Army veteran backed by the national party campaign organization (DSCC).
The 2022 gubernatorial election was rated as Solid Republican from the beginning, as Republicans were coming to comprise at least 64% of the two parties' identifiers among voters in recent elections. Republican Governor Bill Lee was renominated without opposition, while the Democratic nominee (a Doctor and former college professor) was nominated with only 39% of the primary vote. Refusing to debate, the well-funded incumbent Lee coasting to victory stressed that he was "most focused on being the governor right now," and launched television ads touting his policy accomplshments in expanding "women's health care offerings, expanded TennCare benefits for new mothers, and efforts aimed at foster care and adoption" (Associated Press 2022).
As
in Virginia, Tennessee party politics has been a two-party seesaw. Republicans
surged ahead in the 1970s, electing two U.S. senators and two governors, while
Democrats were only able to elect one governor and one senator. Democrats
stormed back into power in the mid-1980s, controlling the governorship and both
U.S. senate seats for an eight-year period. The partisan seesaw shifted yet
again in 1994, as Republicans won all three offices, though Democrats regained
the governorship eight years later (Table 12-1). By the early years of the 21st
century, electoral politics had become intensely competitive between the two
parties, as the parties were virtually tied in the public’s partisan
identifications, as each party controlled one chamber of the state legislature,
and as party control of the U.S. house delegation switched hands. Unlike most
southern states, even presidential contests were relatively competitive, as fellow
southerners Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton carried Tennessee in
four elections, while Republican candidates won the state in the other
eight most recent contests (Table 12-2). Republicans
surged to power in the late 1960s and early 1970s as bitter Democratic
infighting occurred between their liberal and non-liberal factions, and as
Republicans offered as candidates personable moderates who were able to relate
to average citizens. Liberal Democrats won the 1970 gubernatorial nomination
and 1970 senatorial renomination while fending off more moderate challengers,
one of whom refused to even endorse his party’s nominee. One liberal had even
been elected U.S. senator in 1964, and then unseated in the Democratic primary
two years later. Republicans won all three races in the general election by
offering relatively moderate candidates, such as Winfield Dunn for governor and
racial moderate Howard Baker for senator (in 1966). Republicans also offered
some candidates with very appealing personal characteristics, as Howard Baker
was widely regarded as young, mild-mannered, and the epitome of integrity,
which he showed by taking on his own party’s president during the Watergate
scandal hearings. Successful GOP gubernatorial candidate Lamar Alexander in
1978 projected a “man of the people” persona by walking across the state and
listening to voters’ concerns (see Table 12-3). Democrats
stormed back into political power in the 1980s, as they learned the virtues of
maintaining party unity and offering moderate-to-conservative candidates who
could not be labeled as “liberals.” Ned McWherter best exemplifies the broad
popular appeal that Democratic candidates offered voters, as this long-time
fiscal conservative speaker of the state house was a “folksy” politician able
to connect with rural voters, and so ideologically inclusive that he garnered
the support of both labor and business, conservatives and teachers. Al Gore was
elected senator by reciting the non-ideological issues that he had worked for as
congressman, from improving nutritional standards for baby formula to providing
for the cleanup of toxic waste dumps. Jim Sasser unseated a Republican by
accusing the incumbent of caring only for the special interests, and as a
first-term senator he proceeded to amass a middle-of-the-road voting record
(Table 12-3). Democrats maintained a united party in order to elect Sasser as
senator, and were so eager to have McWherter win back the governorship that
even his defeated party primary foes campaigned with him. Ideological
factionalism within the Democratic Party resurfaced in the 1990s, contributing
to a new era of Republican resurgence. Indeed, prominent Democrats in office by
their liberal actions gave Republicans ammunition to blast them as being out of
touch with Tennesseans. Senator Sasser’s roll call record had moved steadily to
the left, contributing to his defeat by Republican Frist (Table 12-4). Al
Gore’s own senate voting record was a moderate liberal one, likely contributing
to his being increasingly perceived as a Washington insider rather than as a
Tennessee senator, and to his being unable to carry his own state in his
flailing 2000 presidential bid (Brodsky and Swansbrough 2002: 194). When
liberals in office weren’t being defeated, they were sulking at not even
winning the Democratic nomination for office. Some Democratic liberals helped
to torpedo the bid of a 6-term congressman because his voting record was merely
“moderate liberal,” and ended up electing Fred Thompson as senator, a Republican
who proceeded to amass a “conservative” voting record. Trial lawyers and state
employees were dismayed by Democrats nominating a moderate businessman for
governor, and their lack of support for the Democrat helped to elect Republican
Don Sundquist as governor. Eventually, liberal Democratic groups once again
learned their lesson, and after wandering in the gubernatorial wilderness for
eight years Democrats were delighted to elect the same businessman, Phil
Bredesen, as governor. Republicans have
their own potential for disastrous intra-party feuding and the offering to
voters of ideologically extreme candidates who can’t relate to average
Tennesseans. Indeed, among Tennessee Republican party activists surveyed in
2001, only 4% regarded themselves as moderates and only 2% as liberal, while
44% called themselves somewhat conservative and fully 50% felt that they were
“very conservative.” Democrats were a more broadly based party leaning towards
the left with 50% of activists being liberal, 34% moderate, and 16%
conservative (Bruce, Clark, Gant, and Daugherty 2003: 172). The ideological
polarization of the modern parties in Tennessee is reflected in the voting
records of their U.S. senators since 1970. While the two Democrats were
generally moderate liberal in voting patterns, four of the five Republicans
were conservative and one was a moderate conservative (Table 12-4). That Republicans
today are pretty uniformly conservative gives Democrats an opening to
offer more
moderate candidates who may be more electable. After the 2004 elections, for
example, Democrats held five of the state’s nine congressional seats even
though presidential candidate John Kerry had carried only two of these
congressional districts. Republicans represented the four districts that Bush
had won with 61% or more of the vote, and all four GOP congressmen had
established conservative voting records. Democratic congress members were
elected from three districts that Bush had carried, and all three were white
males whose voting records ranged from moderate to moderate liberal. Indeed,
even in the two districts that Kerry won, both Democratic representatives had
“only” moderate liberal voting records. One of those districts was even a
majority black district represented by African American Harold Ford Jr., whose
father had served in Congress (Koszczuk and Stern 2005). Such Democratic
pragmatism in the face of likely GOP preoccupation with maintaining ideological
purity suggests that the near future for Tennessee is one of
continuing two-party
competitiveness, instead of a new era of a ruling GOP party governing with as
much dominance as the Democrats had wielded during the first half of the 20th
century. The big GOP gains in Tennessee during the 2010 national
Republican landslide, however, illustrates that Democratic
pragmatism is not always a winning strategy, particularly when Republicans can offer
ideologically inclusive and nondivisive candidates as they have done with
their three most recent governors, and when national forces are
clearly against the Democrats. Table
12-1 Governors and U.S.
Senators and Their Parties in Modern Tennessee Democrats Republicans Governors Senators Senators Governors Senators Senators 1970 Dunn* Brock* Baker 1972 Dunn Brock Baker* 1974 Blanton* Brock Baker 1976 Blanton Sasser* Baker 1978 Sasser Alexander* Baker* 1980 Sasser Alexander Baker 1982 Sasser* Alexander* Baker 1984 Sasser Gore* Alexander 1986 McWherter* Sasser Gore 1988 McWherter Sasser* Gore 1990 McWherter* Sasser Gore* 1992 McWherter Sasser Gore 1993 McWherter Sasser Mathews+ 1994 Sundquist* Frist* Thompson+ 1996 Sundquist Frist Thompson* 1998 Sundquist* Frist Thompson 2000 Sundquist Frist* Thompson 2002 Bredesen* Frist Alexander* 2004 Bredesen Frist Alexander 2006 Bredesen* Corker* Alexander 2008 Bredesen Corker Alexander* 2010 Haslam* Corker Alexander 2012 Haslam Corker* Alexander 2014 Haslam* Corker Alexander* 2016 Haslam Corker Alexander 2018 Lee* Blackburn* Alexander 2020 Lee Blackburn Hagerty* 2022 Lee* Blackburn Hagerty Note: Cell entries indicate the governors and U.S. Senators
elected in or serving during the years listed at the left. * Indicates that the officeholder was elected in that year. + Harlan Mathews was appointed in 1993 after Gore resigned
to become Vice President. + Fred Thompson was elected in 1994 in a special election to
fill Gore/Mathews’ seat. Table 12-2. Republican
Growth in Tennessee Year of Election Pres. Vote (% Rep of 2 pty) U.S. Senate Seats* (% Rep
of 2 pty) Gov. Pty.* (% Rep of 2 pty) Party Ident. (% Rep of 2
pty.) U.S. House Seats (% Rep) State Senate Seats (% Rep
of 2 pty) State House Seats (% Rep
of 2 pty) Sub-Gov. Office 1970 NA 100 (52) R-53 NA 44 41 43 NA 1972 69 100 (62) Rep NA 63 41 49 NA 1974 NA 100 D-44 NA 38 38 35 NA 1976 43 50 (47) Dem NA 38 28 33 NA 1978 NA 50 (58) R-56 34 38 38 39 NA 1980 50 50 Rep 37* 38 38 40 NA 1982 NA 50 (38) R-60 NA 33 33 39 NA 1984 59 0 (36) Rep 48* 33 30 37 NA 1986 NA 0 D-46 NA 33 30 38 NA 1988 58 0 (35) Dem NA 33 33 40 NA 1990 NA 0 (31) D-38 46 33 39 42 NA 1992 47 0 Dem 49 33 42 36 NA 1994 NA 100 (59+) R-55 48 56 45 40 NA 1996 49 100 (62) Rep 52 56 45 38 NA 1998 NA 100 R-70 48 56 45 40 NA 2000 52 100 (67) Rep 47++ 56 45 41 NA 2002 NA 100 (55) D-48 54++ 44 45 45 NA 2004 57 100 Dem 52++ 44 52 46 NA 2006 NA 100 (51) D-30 55 44 52 46 NA 2008 58 100 (67) Dem 51 44 58 51 NA 2010 NA 100 R-66 53 78 61 66 NA 2012 60 100 (68) Rep 52 78 79 71 NA 2014 NA 100 (66) R-75 NA 78 85 74 NA 2016 64 100 Rep 57 78 85 75 NA 2018 NA 100 (55) R-61 64 78 84 74 NA 2020 62 100 (64) Rep 65+++ 78 82 74 NA 2022 NA 100 R-66 NA 89 82 77 NA *
Party identification figures are drawn from a poll conducted in March of the
next year. +
Averages results of two senate elections. ++
Averages results of two polls conducted that year. +++ Fox poll, reported in Buchanan and Kapeluck, The 2020 Presidential Election in the South, p. 11. Note:
In all tables, the bold-faced numbers in each column signify when a competitive
two-party situation emerged for that office. NA indicates not available or no
election held; in Tennessee, no sub-gubernatorial offices are elected
statewide. Source:
The Almanac of American Politics, 1972-1984; CQ=s Politics in America,
1986-2006; Bruce, Clark, Gant, and Daugherty (2003); Mason (2003);
Lamis (1990); Ashford and Locker (1999); Wright, Erikson, and McIver (1985);
Swansbrough and Brodsky (1988); Bullock (2014, 2018); Jones (2011, 2017); the MTSU Poll (2000-6), http://www.mtsusurveygroup.org/mtpoll/; 2018 CNN exit poll. Table 12-3 Factors Affecting
Elections of Tennessee Governors and U.S. Senators Officeholder (party-year 1st, imp.
elections) Issues Candidate
Attributes Party/Campaign
Factors Performance
Factors Winfield Dunn (R- 1970) Liberal Dem vs
moderate GOP Dem. business
problems Divided Dem.
primary Rep. party activist Ray Blanton (D- 1974) Dem. econ. populist Dem redneck, Rep
elite image United Dems. Work with Nixon
hurts Rep. Lamar Alexander (R- 1978, ’82) / Rep. stresses
state issues, Dem. hammers nat’l recession Working man GOP,
walks across state vs. rich banker/ Bitter Dem primary/
Dem stresses Dem heritage Dem gov scandal/
Rep. tech-industry recruitment Ned McWherter (D- 1986, ’90) Conser Dem beats
Dem. liberals/ Folksy Dem. vs.
affluent Rep./ Rep bus. problems United Dems., rural
white support/ broad Dem. coalition Dem. longtime state
house speaker/ Dem. camp. $ advant. Don Sundquist (R- 1994, ’98) Mod. Dem for taxes,
choice/ Dem rich
businessman/ Divided liberals,
nat’l anti-Dem./ no strong Dems. 6 term conser. GOP
cong./ popular gov. Phil Bredesen (D- 2002, ‘06) Bad economy, Rep
tax fallout/ good economy /decisive leader,
health reform /nonideological
Dem. image Successful Dem.
Mayor/ popular governor Bill Haslam
(R- 2010, '14) Fiscal
conservative, pro-education Rep. folksy
listener, likeable nonpartisan governing style/Dem "redneck
hillbilly, execute gov." Much GOP
campaign $/Gov fiscal conservative, attracts jobs, hi ed scholarships Bill Lee
(R- 2018,2022) Conservative businessman GOP/GOP stresses health issues positive GOP
campaign, serve all voters/GOP stresses doing his job GOP visits all
counties in RV, twice/big GOP party id edge 2nd GOP governor
in a row/GOP incumbent Howard Baker (R-
1966, ’78) Race moderate, econ
conser./ liberal Dem. Honest, charm,
mild-manner/ Rep popular Divided Dems/ /Watergate
integrity, GOP leader position William Brock (R- 1970) Liberal Dem
incumbent Divided Dem primary 4-term congressman Jim Sasser (D- ’76, ‘82) Rep special
interest sen./ econ. recession GOP integrity
questions/ United Dems./ early
Dem camp. start / Moderate Dem.
vote record vs. conser. GOP Al Gore (D- 1984) Dem non-ideol work for Tenn. Father famous senator 4-term mod. lib.
Dem. Cong. Fred Thompson (R- 1994, ’96) Public cynical, GOP
term limits, pay cut/ Jeans, boots, khaki
shirt, Rep pickup truck/ Liberal Dems
alienated by mod. lib. Dem./ Rep 4-1 $ advan GOP actor vs. 6
term Dem. congressman/ Dem 1st camp. Bill Frist (R- 1994) Out of touch
liberal Dem. GOP $, gun owner
advant. GOP surgeon vs. 3
term Dem sen. L. Alexander (R- 2002) Educ. leader vs.
mod. lib. D. Popular 2-term GOP
governor 7 term Dem. cong.
loses Bob Corker (R-'6,'12) Mod. Lib.
Dem/conser Dem Tenn. Values
R/ Ad vs. lib.
Dem./Dems disavow anti-gay Dem Rep. rich
mayor/ Marsha Blackburn (R-2018) Conservative GOP 3 visits each from
Trump and Pence, 6 GOP Senators visit Bill Hagerty (R-2020) Dem environmental activist Dem primary upset of veteran backed by party money Rep state agency and ambassador experience Table 12-4 Programs of Tennessee
Governors and U.S. Senators Officeholder
(party-year 1st elected) Progressive
Policies Neutral Policies Conservative
Policies Governors Winfield Dunn (R- 1970) Est. kindergartens,
housing for poor Prison and state
police reforms Ray Blanton (D- 1974) Elderly tax relief Tourism, foreign
industry-trade, pardon scandal Lamar Alexander (R- 1978) Tax increase for
education at all levels Attracts auto
plants, tourism, roads Prison
construction, teacher evaluation Ned McWherter (D- 1986, 1990) Housing and health
for poor, teacher pay/ tax increase for educ. Roads built, gov.
efficiency/ Built prisons/ Don Sundquist (R- 1994, 1998) / plan to establish
income tax dies Industrial
recruiter/ Anti-crime bills,
welfare reform/ Phil Bredesen (D- 2002) Teacher pay raise,
child health preserved Ethics laws, Nissan
head. attracted Bill Haslam (R- 2010) Hi ed. scholarship prog. Sought hi quality jobs For fair housing,
Voting Rights Act Integrity in
Watergate scandal Moderate
conservative record William Brock (R- 1970) Pro-food stamps Rapid constituency
services Conservative voting
record Jim Sasser (D- ’76, ’82, ‘88) / Moderate liberal
record/ liberal votes Moderate vote
record/ Al Gore (D- 1984) Moderate liberal
vote record Holds open meetings
across TN Fred Thompson (R- 1994) Conservative voting
record Bill Frist (R- 1994) Senate Majority
Leader position Conservative voting
record Lamar Alexander (R- 2002) For charter
schools, modest inc vouchers; backs TVA, Oak Ridge,
science-technology educ and research Conservative voting
record (78% of the time) Bob Corker (R- 2006) Conservative voting
record (85% of time) Ideology and Intra-Party Divisions Induce Modern Two-Party Seesaw
Governors
Senators
Senators
Howard Baker
(R- 1966)