CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Aug. 7, 2008 – 12:04 a.m.
2008 Election Forecast: Tennessee — a Long Shot for Obama
By Rachel Kapochunas, CQ Staff
CQ Politics Presidential Race Rating: Republican Favored
Electoral Votes: 11
Tennessee has long joined other Southern states in providing the foundation for Republican presidential candidates. With its historic GOP base in the hilly eastern part of the state, Tennessee in fact was in the region’s vanguard, going for Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower twice in the 1950s. The state even rejected native son Al Gore by 4 percentage points as the 2000 Democratic presidential nominee, a huge factor in George W. Bush ’s razor-thin electoral-vote victory.
This history suggests that John McCain is the solid favorite this year to outrun Barack Obama for Tennessee’s 11 electoral votes.
Yet McCain faced a challenge shoring up his Republican base here after his narrow defeat in the Feb. 5 primary. Conservative Republicans rallied around former Gov. Mike Huckabee of neighboring Arkansas and handed him 34 percent of the vote. McCain trailed with 32 percent.
Ed Cromer, editor of The Tennessee Journal, said evangelical voters in particular expressed reservations about McCain’s stances on some social issues, thinking him “too liberal.” But he believes Republicans quickly coalesced behind McCain after he secured the nomination. “Right now it would appear to be in the McCain column,” he said.
Still, Tennesseeans favored candidates of both parties even during the rise of the state’s Republican Party, which Democrats say gives Obama a shot at winning the state. Cromer said he didn’t think race would be a “big factor” for Obama in the state, except in the positive sense of his ability to draw out black voters in droves for his bid to become the nation’s first black president.
Down-ballot competition is light this year. Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander is being challenged in his bid for a second term but is favored to win.
Comments
Obama has no shot at TN - recall Harold Ford? Forget Obama in TN KY SC GA MS AL. Why even post stories on the possibilities. The media is trying to generate BUZZ as Usual. Obama is a real fraud. Small town Americans can see thorugh the Haze by the slick talking Harvard educated Lawyer
Hmmmm ... Recall Harold Ford! Sounds a tad bit racist to me. Is a real fraud the opposite of a fake fraud?
Dean I am a life long Tennessean, and sorry to burst your bubble, but not only are black americans excited about Barack Obama, but there is enormous amounts of white americans here in Tennessee that are voting for Barack. He has changed some the old stereotypes about the south, so he just might ave a good chance of winning. The only fraud is John McCain and his republican cronies that are more interested playing these childish games than talking about the issues that Americans care about. So speak for yourself when you say Americans can see through the haze, maybe through the rose colored glasses that you are wearing.
1. Gore is no more a "native son" of TN than McCain is one of AZ: Gore was born in WDC while McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. 2. Walter Mondale managed to carry 22 White-majority counties against Reagan, and Obama should fare no worse than the former Veep. Thus, "Leans R" seems a more fitting forecast.
Tennessee and its immediate neighbor to the north, Kentucky, have an identical voting record since 1956. The last time both states voted for the losing presidential candidate was in 1960--opting for Richard Nixon instead of John Kennedy. This year, I suspect both will vote roughly by 10 points for John McCain, who I believe will lose to Barack Obama.
If you were to take the 2000 election and move all the Nader votes to Gore, Bush would still have won by 60,000 votes statewide. Tennessee's demographics have changed a bit, but not enough to make up that much ground, even with the current administration's low approval rating. If Obama maximizes turnout in Nashville and Memphis to compare to the boost in turnout in the 2006 election compared to the 2002 election (+60k for the two senate seats), and if the added population of Nashville (+50k since 2000 census) splits 60-40 (2000 split), that 60k gap would disappear. But there's no native son effect, even though I'd argue it was a wash in 2000, and the growth in suburban counties of Nashville and Memphis could well offset that by 20k votes or so. Much of Memphis' white flight went to Mississippi, but Nashville's suburbs would make the difference. The wild card is Rutherford County, which has the second largest university in the state, a large blue-collar population, and a middle class suffering from the housing bubble. A visit from Obama to Murfreesboro in September could galvanize the students, appeal to the Nissan workers (who are facing a massive layoff), and offset the population gains in the rest of Nashville's suburbs. There's a lot of economic anxiety even in the suburbs of a prosperous city like Nashville. I don't think Obama's chances in Tennessee are strong, but TN could be a lot closer than is commonly thought, based on the particulars of this race. Nashville and Memphis will give him a big boost, but Rutherford County's odd mix of students, pink collar types, and laid-off factory workers might actually put the state in play.
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