Tennessee House and Senate

By Aaron Broder

Republican Senator Lamar Alexander has been representing Tennessee since 2003, and has secured a fairly stable following as a result. Although he was challenged by Democrat Bob Tuke, pundits largely agreed that there would be little competition. Indeed, Alexander had little to worry about considering that both Senate seats in Tennessee have been held by Republicans since 1994. 

And they were right – Alexander ended up winning at 68% to 29%.

All nine of the Tennessee House of Representative seats were up for re-election, however most people were pretty certain about what was going to happen before November 4th. Districts 1, 2, and 3 were all predicted to be won by the incumbent Republican candidates, Phil Roe, Jimmy Duncan, and Zach Wamp, respectively. Meanwhile, the fourth, fifth, and sixth districts are all historically leaning Democrat, and as such were suspected to be won by their incumbents Lincoln Davis, Jim Cooper, and Bart Gordon.

Representative Marsha Blackburn was expected to win her fourth term representing District 7, whereas District 8, another traditionally Democratic area, had everyone thinking that the winner would be John S. Tanner. Tanner was running against James Hart, who was a write-in candidate during the primaries. In District 9 was one of the more interesting races – the expected winner Democrat Steve Cohen had no competition from any Republicans, instead having mainly to deal with two independent candidates.

Surprisingly, every single one of the predictions was correct – all of the incumbents returned to their positions in the House of the Representatives. Overall, it seems that Tennessee didn't have that big of an impact on the changing structure of Congress.

Wow, I can't believe that it's almost over. I'm really relieved and really disappointed at the same time. On the plus side, though, hopefully there will be a little bit of non-election related news after the next few days.

PHOTO: Top: Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander at the presidential debate in Nashville, TN in October. Bottom: Kid Reporter Aaron Broder with Representative Jim Cooper. (Photos by Sue Broder)

Comments

[Vincent]

Wow!!! I can`t believe all the predictions were right.Maybe that will happen in the next 4 years.