A Series on the Political Trends of Williamson County, TN Post-2020

[100% pro-life no matter what]

This is intended to be a multi-part thread (because I have a lot of data in a spreadsheet that I'm figuring out how to best show.  But, I wanted to make a thread to analyze Williamson County's results from this year.  I'm interested in this for two reasons.  First, it's where I live, which means both that I'm naturally interested in the place and that I can speak firsthand to different areas of the county a lot more than I could anywhere else.  Second, Williamson County is one of the last holdouts of Titanium R wealthy suburbia.  Although, in the Trump era, some cracks in that Republicanism have started to show.  This county went from 73-26 Romney to 64-29 Trump to 62-36 Trump.  That's pretty easy to see and similar to trendlines of other suburban counties, even to the point of it almost looking like a Republican-3rd Party swing in 2016 and a 3rd Party-Democratic swing in 2020.

I'm creating this thread both to analyze whether the trends are uniform in the county or concentrated in certain areas and how downballot Republican strength has held up in the Trump era  For now, I'm not looking at 2012 and am using 2016 as a starting point.  I'm also not looking to pontificate on exact numbers for 2024 or what future trends may look like, though I welcome that discussion.

There are two important caveats to the data that I am using.  First is that I did all my calculations using two party vote to save a bunch of time (since the TN SOS spreadsheet can only open in Excel, not Google Sheets).  That means that, initially, 2016 was showing as Trump +37.5 countywide and 2020 as Trump +26.6.  We know that those numbers are actually and Trump +35.0 Trump +26.1, respectively, meaning that the county-wide swing should actually be 8.9 points, not 10.9 points.  To account for that, I will be subtracting 2 points from the swing column when I discuss swings.  I will perform similar calculations for downballot races that I choose to highlight.  This is a good estimate, but will not account for which areas had higher 3rd party voting in 2016.  It also might overestimate the swings somewhat in very Republican precincts and underestimate them somewhat in closer precincts, but I still view this as preferable to making it look like everywhere swung more than it did.  The second caveat is that precinct lines and municipal lines do not match up well.  I eyeballed the precinct map for split precincts to estimate whether the majority of the population would fall into a city or not.  I will be happy to share which precincts I included for which cities.

I'm going to start with just a simple chart showing the results by municipality (as best as I can).  You will see that Spring Hill, Thompson's Station, and Nolensville had the largest swings against Trump this cycle, while Brentwood and Franklin had somewhat smaller swings.  Very rural Fairview and Unincorporated Williamson County had the smallest swings.  However, those municipalities with the largest swings are also starting from much more Republican points than Brentwood and Franklin are.  An interesting little tidbit that I will discuss more later.  The one precinct that flipped (Precinct 10-2, located in Franklin), actually had a much smaller swing than the county as a whole.  The other precinct that nearly flipped (Precinct 11-2, which is also in Franklin) actually had one of the smallest swings of all, only going from Trump +5.3 to Trump +2.5, in the unadjusted numbers.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Lay of the Land Analysis

Here is a precinct map.  I'll put it through the Gallery if that's acceptable (awaiting a PM from the mods about whether government-copyrighted maps can be posted here).
https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/williamsonherald.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/87/18745df0-3f08-11e6-9af5-635c2aa62278/57758cc54a236.pdf.pdf

Ward 1 (71-29 Trump)- Ward 1, located in Western and Southwestern Williamson County, is probably the most rural ward of the county.  It's located in the Western section of the county, which is very hilly terrain that is not built up very much.  Precincts 1-1 and 1-2 cover the City of Fairview, which is small and maintains a very rural character.  Precincts 1-3 and 1-4 are completely rural, as well.  Precinct 1-5 does not really fit in with the rest of Ward 1 at all, as it covers a portion of the fast-growing suburban city of Spring Hill.  Realistically, 1-5 should be a part of Ward 3.  1-5 isn't that much to the left of the rest of this rural area, though, having gone 68-32 for Trump in 2020.

Ward 2 (72-28 Trump)- Ward 2, located in Southeastern Williamson County, is also highly rural.  However, the Western edge of the ward does include portions of Spring Hill and Thompson's Station, as well as a tiny sliver of Franklin (that was not reflected in the Franklin results).  The two fully rural precincts, 2-1 and 2-4, are the two most pro-Trump precincts in the county in 2020, with Trump having won 79% and 77% of the two-party vote, respectively.  Precincts 2-2 (Spring Hill), 2-3 (unincorporated except for a small, mostly commercial, chunk of Franklin around Berry Farms, but developed into suburbia), and 2-5 (Thompson's Station plus a tiny sliver of Franklin) are mostly exurban/outer suburban in character and voted between 67% and 70% for Trump in the two party vote.

Ward 3 (64-36 Trump)- Ward 3, in Southern Williamson County, is entirely located in the City of Spring Hill, which straddles the line with Maury County (the above Spring Hill results only refer to Spring Hill-Williamson).  Twenty years ago, Spring Hill would have been described as a small town; however, in recent years, its convenience to I-65 and US-31 have led to massive population growth to the point where it is a proper suburb at this point.  To preview a future post, Ward 3 also had the sharpest swing away from Trump of all 12 wards.  With that said, Trump cleared 60% of the 2PV in all precincts in this ward.

Ward 4 (62-38 Trump)- Ward 4, located on the east side of I-65 in Central Williamson County, includes portions of Franklin and a small sliver of Brentwood, complete with the subdivisions typical of that area.  Precincts 4-1 and 4-3 also include portions of the commercial center known as Cool Springs (which mostly falls within the Franklin City Limits), including many of the new apartment complexes that have gone up in the area.  Both of those precincts are 59-41 Trump.  Precinct 4-2 is much less built up and is almost entirely in Unincorporated Williamson County.  The precinct still does have numerous subdivisions (mostly very upscale), as well as a couple small unincorporated towns.  It went 68-32 for Trump.  Ward 4 is also my home, as I live in 4-3.

Ward 5 (64-36 Trump)- There is a ton of variety in Ward 5, located in Eastern Williamson County.  Much of the landmass is quite rural, but those rural areas only represent a small portion of the population (the rural 5-3 went 72-28 Trump).  5-1 contains the eastern extreme of Brentwood, while 5-2 and 5-4 both contain portions of the smaller Nolensville.  Nolensville is a little less convenient to Nashville (or Cool Springs, for that matter) than Brentwood, Franklin, and Spring Hill, due to its location far away from an interstate.  That undoubtedly has an impact on the population choosing to move there.  The three developed precincts are 60-62% Trump in the two party vote.

Ward 6 (59-41 Trump)- Ward 6, in Northern Williamson County, falls entirely into the City of Brentwood.  Ward 6 is also extremely wealthy.  There are no business districts in this ward (apart from a tiny extension of Cool Springs into 6-1 along Moores Lane), and it is just one subdivision full of mansions after another.  6-3 (60-40 Trump) notably also includes the Governor's Club, which is one of the wealthiest subdivisions I've seen in Williamson County.  6-3 also has Raintree Forest, which was one of the earliest planned communities of mansions and kind of paved the way for others.  Precinct 6-2, along the border with Davidson County, is somewhat less Republican than the rest of Brentwood, only going 57-43 for Trump.

Ward 7 (63-37 Trump)- Ward 7, in Northern Williamson County, also almost entirely within the City of Brentwood, is very similar in character to Ward 6.  This area is also super wealthy and very Republican.  The closest thing to a downtown that Brentwood has is located in Precinct 7-1, very close to the line with 7-2.  Driving along Franklin Road (US-31) through Precinct 7-2, you will see numerous new-looking upscale subdivisions.  Both 7-1 and 7-2 voted in the mid-60s for Trump this year.  Precinct 7-3, along the line with Metro Nashville to the east of I-65, is slightly more competitive, at 59-41 Trump, but has a similar character to the rest of Brentwood.  Ward 7 is also where downballot Republicans overperformed Trump the most.

Ward 8 (61-39 Trump)- Ward 8 is a sort of sprawling area in Central and Northwestern Williamson County.  It goes from Cool Springs at the Eastern/Southeastern end of Precinct 8-2 to very rural territory in Northwestern Williamson in parts of Precinct 8-3.  Based on voting patterns, it's actually Precinct 8-1, located between 8-2 and 8-3 that is the most Republican (65-35), while the very suburban 8-2 and more rural 8-3 both only went 59-41 for Trump.  I haven't spent a ton of time in 8-3, but it does seem to have both significant downballot Republican strength and a major anti-Trump swing, suggesting that maybe it's pretty upscale, even though it appears fairly rural.

Ward 9 (65-35 Trump)- Ward 9, located in Central-Western Williamson County, is predominately rural, but is a sort of "rural chic", or a little more upscale than you would think of rural areas.  The Natchez Trace Parkway, run by the National Parks Service, also spends most of its time in Williamson County in Ward 9.  Precinct 9-4 (69-31 Trump) also includes the small unincorporated town of Leiper's Fork, which is a semi-popular tourist spot for an idyllic-looking, old-school, Southern downtown.  In addition to rural areas, Precinct 9-3 covers the Western Franklin neighborhood of Westhaven, which is a large suburban development and golf club, with the cheapest home costing about $900K.  Unsurprisingly, that precinct is still much more Republican than most of Franklin, at 65-35 Trump.  Precinct 9-5 (70-30 Trump) also includes the portions of the fast-growing Town of Thompson's Station.

Ward 10 (53-47 Trump)- Ward 10, in Central Williamson County, is the most balanced precinct politically, and, along with Ward 11, the only one with significant non-white populations.  It also has a couple of the only non-rural neighborhoods that could be described as lower-middle class in Williamson County.  Precinct 10-2, covering an area to the northeast of Downtown Franklin, is the only Biden precinct in the county, going 53-47 for Biden.  That precinct is a mix of the standard Williamson County developments, some apartment complexes (that mostly cater to middle and upper-middle income individuals), and a lower-middle class, heavily Hispanic and African-American neighborhood.  The precinct is about 59% non-Hispanic white, the second lowest in the county.  Precincts 10-1 (54-46 Trump) and 10-3 (57-43 Trump) both contain residential neighborhoods just to the north of Downtown Franklin.  I'd say that they both have a decent mix of wealthy subdivisions and more modest ones.

Ward 11 (59-41 Trump)- Ward 11, in Central Williamson County, covers Downtown Franklin and adjacent neighborhoods to the South and Southwest.  Precinct 11-2, which includes Downtown Franklin, is one of the more interesting precincts in the county.  It's 51-49 Trump, but that masks several different groups present there.  Downtown Franklin, and the area immediately west of it along West Main Street (for a few blocks west of downtown) has large, old, and historic-looking single family homes.  But, then, the precinct also contains Franklin Estates (a trailer park), as well as a couple standard upper-middle class subdivisions.  All that combine to give a very competitive precinct.  Interestingly, this precinct had one of the smallest swings against Trump in 2020, possibly emblematic of non-white trends elsewhere (DRA shows a precinct with slightly different boundaries than the actual one at 58% NHW).  Precincts 11-1 and 11-3, along Columbia Ave (US-31) south of Downtown Franklin, are both much more Republican (especially 11-3, at 66-34 Trump) and more reflect the racial and income demographics of Williamson County.

Ward 12 (60-40 Trump): Ward 12, straddling I-65 in Central Williamson County, is like Wards 10 and 11, almost entirely in the City of Franklin.  It's mostly standard (for WillCo) upper-middle class suburbia, but Precinct 12-1 (55-45 Trump) does include the Southwestern Quadrant of Cool Springs that has a couple apartment complexes, including one that looks (from the outside) less upscale than most Franklin/Cool Springs apartments.  Its population is by far the lowest of the Cool Springs districts, which may be a portion of why it's less Republican.  Or, it could be that it borders 10-2, the Biden precinct.  12-2 and 12-3 are basically generic upper-middle class suburbia, as are so many of the precincts, and were both in the low 60s for Trump.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Trump vs. Downballot Republicans:

In Williamson County, downballot Republicans held up a lot better than Donald Trump did.  In fact Bill Hagerty and Mark Green did better than all 2018 Republicans.  Bill Hagerty basically matched Trump's 2016 margin, winning the county by 35 points, while Mark Green actually expanded on Trump's 2016 margin, winning the county by 37 points, the best Republican performance in Williamson County in the Trump era.  The big question that we have to answer is where this double-digit overperformance came from.  Was it the upscale suburban areas having some voters who would vote for a "normal" Republican but not Trump?  Was it the rapidly growing areas like Spring Hill and Thompson's Station?  Or, might we have a surprise and either see uniform overperformance or it come from one of the more downscale parts of Franklin or a rural area?



What really sticks out here in this chart is the suburban core of Brentwood and Franklin.  These are the most long-term suburban and wealthiest parts of the county.  Ward 7, in Brentwood, had the biggest overperformance.  On the other hand, the more rural wards 1, 2, and 5, only saw Green outrun Trump by single digits.  A bit of a surprise is Ward 3, because that is Spring Hill, which is one of the fastest growing areas of the county- and which I said showed the strongest Democratic swing at the presidential level.  There, Green and Hagerty could not get the same number of Biden supporters that they could in Franklin and Brentwood.  I'll discuss this more in the next post, but that makes me question whether Spring Hill's Democratic trend is more organic and less about Trump, while Brentwood and Franklin's are more reactions to Trump himself.  The rapid growth along I-65 in previously rural/exurban land south of Franklin could actually be causing Spring Hill and Thompson's Station to change.

The 5 Precincts with the largest overperformance:
1. Precinct 8-3: 59% Trump, 67% Green (16.4 point overperformance).  This is that rural-ish precinct west of Brentwood that seemed puzzling why it was so low for Trump.  I suspect it's basically a large country club, but I'm not 100% sure.

2. Precinct 9-1: 65% Trump, 72% Green (14.1 point overperformance).  This is another precinct on the outskirts of the suburban core.  Like 8-3, it is immediately west of it, but this is directly west of Franklin.  It's a well-off, semi-rural precinct, with some suburban development.

3. Precinct 10-3: 57% Trump, 64% Green (13.7 point overperformance).  This strikes me as a fairly standard precinct of North Franklin, full of upper-middle class subdivisions.

4. Precinct 7-1: 65% Trump, 72% Green (13.4 point overperformance).  This is a wealthy Brentwood precinct, containing its downtown strip and numerous residential areas.

5. Precinct 9-3: 65% Trump, 72% Green (13.3 point overperformance).  This is a wealthy precinct of West Franklin, covering the Westhaven subdivision, that I profiled below.


The 5 precincts with the least downballot overperformance:

1. Precinct 1-3: 73% Trump, 76% Green (4.7 point overperformance).  Very rural area in the southwestern corner of the county.

2. Precinct 1-1: 72% Trump, 74% Green (4.9 point overperformance).  Very rural area in the northwestern corner of the county.  Includes about half of Fairview.

3. Precinct 1-4: 77% Trump, 79% Green (5.5 point overperformance).  Very rural area in Southern Williamson County, along the line with Maury County, but away from Spring Hill.  I have a friend who has a place out there, and it's like stepping back in time to drive there.  It's also the only precinct in the county that (according to our method of extrapolating the 2PV) very likely swung Republican at the presidential level in 2020 (maybe along with 2-1).

4. Precinct 1-5: 68% Trump, 71% Green (6.1 point overperformance).  This is actually part of Spring Hill (west of US-31).  I'm kind of surprised that this area is that high up this list.

5. Precinct 9-4: 69% Trump, 73% Green (6.7 point overperformance).  This is a rural precinct, but a fairly upscale rural area.  It includes Leiper's Fork and much of the Natchez Trace Parkway.  I drive through this precinct often because one of my two churches is there, and, honestly, I'm surprised it isn't more Republican, if anything.  Maybe a few artsy people are attracted to Leiper's Fork?


As for the competitive precincts in Franklin with more diversity of race and income?  They basically have average levels of downballot overperformance, of 10-11%.  That means that Republicans comfortably won them downballot, even though Biden won 10-2 (and nearly won 11-2) at the top of the ticket.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Swings from 2016 to 2020:

As I warned before, due to my laziness, I am showing these swings in terms of two party vote.  That means I need to either adjust them to account for the higher 3rd party voting in 2016 or accept that the swings will be appearing as larger than they are.  I have chosen to adjust for that by subtracting 2.03% from the swings to make it match the actual countywide swing of 8.89%.  The downside to that is that third-party vote increases the margins most in places that were already lopsided.  That means that the super Republican wards might need more of an adjustment, while the more competitive ones need less adjusting.  So, I have designated the four wards where that is a significant issue as such.



Once accounting for the overstated and understated swings, it is clear that the mostly rural 1st and 2nd wards swung against Trump by the least.  In fact, a couple precincts in these wards almost undoubtedly swung towards him.  Several more likely trended Republican relative to the national popular vote.

As noted in the initial post, the strongest swings away from Trump were seen in rapidly growing suburban communities like Spring Hill.  The Spring Hill-based 3rd Ward had the sharpest Democratic swing in the county.  Wards 4 (East Franklin), 7 (West Brentwood), 8 (North Franklin/Far West Brentwood/Unincorporated Suburbia), and 10 (North Franklin) all also saw double-digit swings away from the President in 2020.  Portions of Ward 5 near Nolensville also saw large swings, but were counteracted by rural parts of that ward.  Ward 10 is especially interesting because the swing was far from uniform.  Precinct 10-2 (the lone Biden precinct in Williamson County) actually swung far less than most of the county, going from 50.06-49.94 Trump to 52.6-47.4 Biden, a swing of only about five points (due to the close margins, it makes little sense to adjust this swing).  Whereas, 10-1 went from 61-39 Trump in 2016 to 54-46 Trump in 2020.  Precinct 10-3 was even more extreme and showed the largest swing outside of Spring Hill, going from 65-35 Trump '16 to 57-43 Trump '20.  Were those precincts to duplicate their swings in 2024, they would both flip.

Another example of a precinct that did not move much was the competitive Precinct 11-2.  Trump's share of the two party vote only declined from 52.6% to 51.2% in that precinct, which includes Downtown Franklin and is one of two precincts with significant non-white populations.  Based on the overall county swings, you could reasonably have expected 11-2 to also be a Biden precinct, but Trump was able to hold it because it had the smallest swing outside of the rural precincts.  The lack of significant swings in 10-2 and 11-2, which are both likely under 60% non-Hispanic white in a county that is nearly 90% non-Hispanic white, are emblematic of Trump's relative strength with non-white (particularly Hispanic) communities nationwide in 2020.

Spring Hill's swings are truly staggering.  Precinct 3-3 went from 70.3% Trump in 2016 to only 60.7% Trump in 2020.  That precinct also saw much smaller than average downballot overperformance, to the point where Mark Green did double digits worse than the Trump '16 numbers, despite outrunning Trump's 2016 performance countywide.  Spring Hill is definitely an area that needs close attention in 2024.  It could be just that it's now looking more like Brentwood and Franklin than surrounding rural areas and is now reflecting that in its voting.  But, it could also be that it's truly zooming leftward and will vote to the left of the other cities in the county in the near future.  Somehow, I sense that a future portion of this project should be to look at the Maury County side of Spring Hill and see if those crazy swings are present there too (even though Maury County registered a trend of essentially 0 in 2020).

Brentwood as a whole is an area where you could maybe say that, if you squint, Trump held up better than expected.  The 6th Ward swung less than the county as a whole, and the 7th only barely swung more than it.  While the overall Brentwood and Franklin swings were similar, there is a key difference.  In Franklin, it is a case where the formerly super-Republican, nearly uniformly white and well-off precincts swung by double digits, only to be brought down by the lack of swings in the couple minority-heavy precincts adjacent to downtown.  While in Brentwood, the swings are more uniform and smaller than the rich parts of Franklin.  Cool Springs (as I'll look at later) may have something to do with that in Franklin, but it could also be that Brentwood is, ever so slightly, wealthier than Franklin.  As shown with NOVA Green's look at Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills in suburban Birmingham, those super wealthy towns barely budged.  Maybe, there is something to Trump holding up slightly better in Brentwood than other highly populated well-off areas of the county.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Reserved to look at growth rates between areas and discuss specific areas of interest, like Cool Springs.

[NOVA Green]

I really like what you are doing here, covering one of those States which doesn't get much attention on Atlas, and going into extensive level details on the Political Geography of the 6th largest County by POP in TN, which not only has the highest % of educational attainment by County in Tennessee, but also the highest Median Household Income Levels.

Awesome work!!!

Looking forward to seeing your additional coverage from Williamson County (and possibly other places in TN later)....

A few questions (Since I am not an expert on the County):

1.) Have you done the compare & contrast between 2016 GE and 2020 GE PRES Total Votes by Ward / Precinct ?

2.) How many of these changes are a result of changing local demographics (such as shifts between existing voters versus new developments creating new voters)?

Would be interesting to run compare and contrast % of vote numbers between '16 and '20 by precinct and map against new developments vs increased turnout in "Rural" Williamson County.

For anyone not familiar with recent GE-PRES election results from Williamson, looks something like this from '08-'16.

2008 GE---

(30-69) McCain

2012 GE---

(26-73) Romney

2016 GE---

(29-64) Trump

2020 GE---

(36-62) Trump

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I really like what you are doing here, covering one of those States which doesn't get much attention on Atlas, and going into extensive level details on the Political Geography of the 6th largest County by POP in TN, which not only has the highest % of educational attainment by County in Tennessee, but also the highest Median Household Income Levels.

Awesome work!!!

Looking forward to seeing your additional coverage from Williamson County (and possibly other places in TN later)....

A few questions (Since I am not an expert on the County):

1.) Have you done the compare & contrast between 2016 GE and 2020 GE PRES Total Votes by Ward / Precinct ?

2.) How many of these changes are a result of changing local demographics (such as shifts between existing voters versus new developments creating new voters)?

Would be interesting to run compare and contrast % of vote numbers between '16 and '20 by precinct and map against new developments vs increased turnout in "Rural" Williamson County.

For anyone not familiar with recent GE-PRES election results from Williamson, looks something like this from '08-'16.

2008 GE---

(30-69) McCain

2012 GE---

(26-73) Romney

2016 GE---

(29-64) Trump

2020 GE---

(36-62) Trump

One of my subsequent posts is going to touch on that question.  I might also try to compare downballot GOP performance in 2020 to Trump's 2016 margin.  I think that would be useful because those numbers are similar countywide.  Seeing which areas moved in which direction from there could hint at trends due to population change versus trends that were unique to Trump but not to the rest of the GOP.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I'm going to do one looking at the 2016-20 swings in depth (like I did with the downballot over-performances), another looking at vote growth, and then possibly one comparing 2016-PRES to 2020-SEN or 2020-HOUSE, effectively creating a trend map (since the countywide margins were similar).  Are there any other ways that y'all would be interested in seeing the voting patterns for this county analyzed?

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Hagerty 2020 vs. Trump 2016:

We previously looked at downballot overperformance and 2016-20 swings separately.  But, now I thought it might be interesting to combine them.  There is an added benefit that both Bill Hagerty and Donald Trump in 2016 won Williamson County by roughly 35-point margins.  This allows us to create a trend map of sorts for the county by comparing the two.



Here, we can really see that Spring Hill (and, to a lesser extent, Nolensville) has moved away from the Republican Party over the last four years.  In Brentwood and Unincorporated Williamson County (maybe Fairview too, considering the mathematical underestimate that is the uniform third party swing adjuster), Bill Hagerty outperformed Donald Trump from four years ago.  Franklin basically moved with the county, although there was some variance to that.  In precinct 4-1, including part of Cool Springs, Hagerty was nearly five points off Trump's 2016 margin.  On the other hand, precinct 11-2 (including Downtown Franklin) is clearly trending massively to the right relative to the county, with Hagerty having gotten nearly 55% of the two-party vote (and Green over 56%), relative to Trump's 52.6% in 2016.  That's a GOP swing of more than four points.  Likewise, 10-2 (the Biden precinct) went for Trump by a measly 2 votes in 2016 and went for Hagerty by 52 votes this year, a significant downballot overperformance.  Green even won that precinct by triple digits.

The 5 Precincts where Hagerty did best relative to Trump '16:
1. Precinct 11-2: 54.8% Hagerty, 52.6% Trump '16.  This includes Downtown Franklin, has a significant non-white population, and was covered extensively upthread.

2. Precinct 2-1: 81.7% Hagerty, 79.8% Trump '16.  This is a Titanium R rural precinct in SE Williamson County that likely swung Republican, even at the presidential level in 2020.

3. Precinct 10-2: 51.2% Hagerty, 50.06% Trump '16.  This is the Biden precinct that has been analyzed way more than any other precinct in this thread.

4. Precinct 1-4: 78.5% Hagerty, 77.6% Trump '16.  This is a Titanium R rural precinct in SW Williamson County that definitely swung Republican at the presidential level in 2020.

5. Precinct 9-3: 71.0% Hagerty, 70.1% Trump '16.  This is the wealthy West Franklin neighborhood of Westhaven.  It also made the list of biggest downballot overperformances.  Green did even better, at 71.7%.

The 5 Precincts where Hagerty did worst relative to Trump '16:
1. Precinct 3-3: 63.5% Hagerty, 70.3% Trump '16.  This is the Spring Hill precinct that seems to be trending Democratic the fastest.  Trump barely got 60% of the two-party vote here.

2. Precinct 12-1: 59.3% Hagerty, 63.3% Trump '16.  This precinct includes the southwestern quadrant of Cool Springs and is located in Franklin.

3. Precinct 3-2: 67.6% Hagerty, 71.5% Trump '16.  This is another Spring Hill precinct that is rapidly trending Democratic.

4. Precinct 1-5: 70.6% Hagerty, 74.4% Trump '16.  This is yet another precinct in Spring Hill.  It's also the main reason for Ward 1's swing.

5. Precinct 3-1: 69.5% Hagerty, 72.9% Trump '16.  You guessed it.  This is Spring Hill.

Conclusion to this chapter:

All in all, it seems like the rural areas of the county, minority-heavy neighborhoods, and maybe some of the most wealthy areas got more Republican relative to Williamson County as a whole over the last four years.  On the other hand, Spring Hill swung massively to the left.  Cool Springs precincts look like they may have moved in that direction as well.  An interesting point is that Cool Springs and Spring Hill are the two main areas in the county that have apartment complexes, which, although mostly upscale, cater to a much younger and less established in Williamson County crowd than the rest of the developments in the county.  Some growing parts of Nolensville and Thompson's Station didn't make this list but also moved in that direction.  Look tomorrow for an analysis of vote growth, some of which may provide a bit of a counterpoint to the central conclusions of this analysis.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I wanted to revive this for 2022, but the issue is that precincts have been massively de-emphasized in Williamson County.  The main unit for showing votes is by county commission district.  Some county commission districts are still divided into precincts, but those only seem to be because parts are in one district (whether for US House, State House, or State Senate), while others are in another district.  So, I'll just do it by county commission districts.  I'll put the 2020 results for the same county commission districts, but the boundaries changed at least somewhat for most of them.

*Like before, all calculations are based on two party vote.

District 1 (Rural Western Williamson County- including Fairview- with a small piece of Spring Hill)
Lee 74.3%, Martin 25.7%
Trump 71.2%, Biden 28.8%
Swing: R+6.5

District 2 (Southeastern Williamson County (mostly rural with bits of Spring Hill)
Lee 77.5%, Martin 23.5%
Trump 71.8%, Biden 28.2%
Swing: R+11.4

District 3 (Spring Hill)
Lee 69.4%, Martin 30.6%
Trump 64.4%, Biden 35.6%
Swing R+10

District 4 (Northeast Franklin, with a small sliver of Southeast Brentwood and some rural land)
Lee 68.3%, Martin 31.7%
Trump 62.0%, Biden 38.0%
Swing R+12.6

District 5 (Eastern Williamson County, including Nolensville)
Lee 69.4%, Martin 30.6%
Trump 63.9%, Biden 36.1%
Swing R+11

District 6 (East Brentwood)
Lee 64.4%, Martin 35.6%
Trump 59.5%, Biden 40.5%
Swing R+9.9

District 7 (West Brentwood with small bits of Franklin around Cool Springs)
Lee 68.0%, Martin 32.0%
Trump 62.9%, Biden 37.1%
Swing R+10.2

District 8 (Northeast Franklin to semi-suburban areas west of Brentwood)
Lee 67.5%, Martin 32.5%
Trump 60.6%, Biden 39.4%
Swing R+13.8

District 9 (West Franklin and "rural chic" areas west of Franklin)
Lee 72.5%, Martin 27.5%
Trump 65.5%, Biden 34.5%
Swing R+14

District 10 (North Franklin)
Lee 61.1%, Martin 38.9%
Trump 53.4%, Biden 46.6%
Swing R+15.4

District 11 (South Franklin down to Thompson's Station)
Lee 65.6%, Martin 34.4%
Trump 58.7%, Biden 41.3%
Swing R+13.8

District 12 (Southeast Franklin)
Lee 68.0%, Martin 32.0%
Trump 60.1%, Biden 39.9%
Swing R+15.7


ANALYSIS:

Overall, comparisons have to be limited because precincts changed significantly, but it's clear that Franklin-based districts swung the furthest right.  Many of those swung close to 15 points right from 2020 to 2022.  Spring Hill, which took the largest turn leftwards in 2020, seems to have swung by slightly less than the county as a whole.  Lee did slightly better than Trump 2016 countywide.  But, it could be interesting to look at where he outran Trump 2016 versus where he lagged behind.

Also, due to precinct changes, the Biden +5 precinct is now part of a precinct that voted for Bill Lee by  17 points.  Its new form likely would have been a Trump precinct in 2020 as well.  But, there is a new competitive precinct (7-2), which straddles the Brentwood-Franklin border.  It has a tiny population, much of it lives in one apartment complex across from the Cool Springs Galleria.  It voted for Lee by just under 10 points.  It's unclear who would have won that in 2020.

Downtown Franklin is also now its own precinct (because it was put in a different State House district from a lot of the rest of District 11).  But, it actually voted for Lee by over 30 points.  It's not likely to be competitive in 2024.