TN 2022 Elections

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Some thoughts ahead of our primaries next Thursday (yes, we are weird and do Thursday primaries):

-The governor's race is one of the least interesting in the country.  Bill Lee is unopposed in the primary and will face one of three largely unknown opponents in the general election.  It's obviously Safe R, with the only question being how much he wins by.  I'd set the over/under at 35 points.

-The most interesting congressional primary is undoubtedly in TN-5, which is wide open.  This new Republican-leaning seat covers Southern Nashville and many of its suburbs and exurbs, including half of Williamson County, most of Wilson County, and all of Maury County.  The two conventional frontrunners are Former Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives Beth Harwell of Nashville and Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles.  Ogles is running somewhat to the right of Harwell and gained a lot of popularity in 2020 with his vocal stance that Maury County (an exurban county along the "favored quarter" south of Nashville) would never have covid restrictions.  In a 1x1 race, I'd think that Ogles would be narrowly favored.  However, veteran and businessman Kurt Winstead has also mounted a strong campaign, making this a legitimate three-way race.  It's very tough to say which way this will go.

-A fascinating local race is in Williamson County, where Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson is in a tough race in the GOP primary against Gary Humble.  Humble is the founder of a non-profit called Tennessee Stands, which was created in 2020 to vocally oppose all covid restrictions and wound up also engaging in conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.  My best guess is that Johnson, with the support of every major Republican official, finds a way to prevail, but Humble has a ton of grassroots support.  What I ultimately guess saves Johnson is the "respectable conservative" streak of Williamson County.  The winner will be unopposed in November's general election.  Humble does have endorsements from well-known Christian financial speaker Dave Ramsey and former Nashville Predators Captain Mike Fisher.  He also has a ton of yard signs around neighborhoods.  I'd put it at Lean Johnson, but an upset wouldn't absolutely stun me.

-Many counties are having general elections for county offices as well next week.  I'm again most familiar with Williamson County, where it is at least worth noting our county mayoral election.  The two candidates are longtime incumbent Republican Mayor Rogers Anderson and Independent Stephen "Coach" Done.  However, don't let the "Independent" label fool you; Coach Done is a Republican running to Anderson's right.  There was dissatisfaction with Anderson for issuing a mask mandate from October 2020 until February 2021 (which also helped Humble's Tennessee Stands group grow).  Coach's (as he seems to prefer to be called) campaign seems to also be heavily focused on social issues and faith.  Despite the fact that someone like me would be more inclined to consider voting for Coach over Anderson than I would for Humble over Johnson, I give Coach much less of a chance for the simple fact that this is a general election, not a Republican primary.  While there might be an occasional low-info Democrat who votes for him since he doesn't have a R next to his name, I expect that many moderate suburban Democrats will be fine voting for Anderson.

-Brentwood based HD-61 has a heavily contested primary for an open seat between Gino Bulso and Bob Ravener.  Ravener seems to have most of the major endorsements, but Bulso has avertised much more.  I don't live in that district, so I haven't had to decide who to personally vote for, but my sense is that Bulso will probably win (based on the number of yard signs).  With that said, their two campaigns and platforms seem virtually identical to me.  Bulso's campaign might be focusing slightly more on abortion, as he's the founder of a pro-life lawyers group.

-My home district, HD-63, has another open primary to replace the retiring, scandal-plagued former Speaker of the House Glen Casada (or more accurately, Casada tried to run for county clerk but lost the GOP primary 3:1).  Three candidates are on the ballot: Laurie Cardoza-Moore, Jake McCalmon, and James Sloan.  Cardoza-Moore has the support of a lot of conservative organizations and Michelle Bachmann, while McCalmon has the support of TN-7 Congressman Mark Green.  I'd imagine that it's a two-way race between those to and one that could go either way.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Bumping this for the non-Congressional TN elections tonight.  For the record, my votes in the races I mentioned were Bill Lee, Andy Ogles, Jack Johnson, Coach Done, and Jake McCalmon (I don't live in HD-61 so I couldn't vote in that race).  I imagine most Republicans will either go Johnson/Anderson or Humble/Done (since both groups are vocally supporting each other), so my splitting those races was a little different, but I voted on what I felt the merits of each of those two races to be.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson survives a nail-biter of a primary against Gary Humble by just over three points.

[progressive85]

Which of the districts containing parts of Nashville do you think will have the lowest percentage in vote for the Republican candidate?  Or did they evenly spread out Nashville that there's really no difference at all?

[Roll Roons]

Which of the districts containing parts of Nashville do you think will have the lowest percentage in vote for the Republican candidate?  Or did they evenly spread out Nashville that there's really no difference at all?

It's still a double digit Trump district, but TN-05 is the least Republican of the three and the most likely one to be in play later in the decade.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Which of the districts containing parts of Nashville do you think will have the lowest percentage in vote for the Republican candidate?  Or did they evenly spread out Nashville that there's really no difference at all?

They really wasted votes in TN-6 (which is still something like Trump +30 if my memory serves).  Even if they didn't want to have TN-4 take part of Davidson County (likely due to fear of Rutherford County trends), TN-6 could have easily taken on a little more Nashville, strengthening TN-5 and TN-7.

While TN-5 and TN-7 are only a few points off, TN-7 largely saw neutral trends during the Trump Era, while TN-5 trended sharply Democratic.  Now, it does contain a lot of areas where 2020 downballot Republicans even did better than Trump 2016, so it remains to be seen how it behaves in the 2020s.

It's Safe R in 2022 and 2024, but I could see Democrats making a serious effort if 2026 is a Republican midterm (I still think it would be an uphill climb for them though).

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Results from yesterday:

GOV-R: Lee Unopposed
GOV-D: Martin 39.4%, Smiley 38.8%, Atwater 21.8%- The two Memphis-based candidates seem to have played spoiler with each other a bit, allowing Martin to prevail

TN-5 R: Ogles 37, Harwell 26, Winstead 22- It also looks like there was a sizable write-in vote, almost certainly for far-right filmmaker Robby Starbuck.

SD-27 R: Johnson 52, Humble 48- The Senate Majority Leader barely survives

HD-61 R: Bulso 61, Ravener 39

HD-63 R: McCalmon 44, Cardoza-Moore 42


Williamson County Local Elections:

County Mayor: Anderson (R) 67, Done (I) 33- The right-wing challenge to the county mayor came up well short

County Clerk: Whitby (R) 72, Sparks (D) 28- The margin looks way more like pre-2016 Wilco, but that can happen in local races.

County Commission: 24 Republicans, 0 Democrats- Republicans sweep the County Commission.  Democrats came closest in District 10 (dual member districts), where the results were 31% R1, 30% R2, 25% D1, 14% D2

School Board: Republicans won all six races on the ballot (the other 6 are up in 2024) in the county's first-ever partisan School Board election.  Four incumbents won (a couple of which faced Independent challenges from their right), Republicans took an open seat in District 8, and Republican Drason Beasley knocked off more centrist Independent School Board Chair Nancy Nelson Garrett in District 12 by a margin of 59%-41%.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

We don't get any SC, TN, AR or KS POLLS