Why are Tennessee's suburbs still vote Republican

[Pres Mike]

In the Trump era, suburbs around the nation swifted leftward. Even in Southern states like Texas and Georgia.

But not in Tennessee. Already more conservative than suburbs in the rest of the nation, Tennessee's suburbs either stayed the same or went right!

In Memphis, Democrats made no gains in the suburbs of Germantown, Collierville and Bartlett. Nevermind neighboring bedroom suburbs in Tipton or Fayette counties lol. Both went right!

Outside of Nashville, Rutherford County went from 60-34% to 57-41%. But that was mostly 2016 third party voters going Democrat. Williamson County went 64-29% to 62-34%. Once again, it was gains from third party votes

Tennessee was an odd state. Trump made further gains in rural areas. Memphis and Nashville went left. Suburbs stayed mostly the same. This was the opposite of the rest of the nation.

Statewide, it went from 35-61% to 37-61%

I think unlike Georgia or Texas, Tennessee's high growth comes from upper middle class families and retirees. Tennessee is more like Florida when it comes to migration patterns

[Sol]

Why wouldn't they? White-majority southern suburbia is still quite Republican outside of the innermost burbs, barring unusual circumstances.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Evangelicalism

[ProgressiveModerate]

With Memphis, a large part is definitely pretty extreme race polarization that hasn’t gotten much better. If you look at the one part of metro Memphis that has actually gotten pretty diverse; DeSoto County in MS, it has zoomed left. Another factor is most of Memphis’s influence is confined to Shelby and DeSoto Counties we don’t really see much sprawl into neighboring counties; at least as much as one would expect for a metro if it’s size

Metro Nashville counties definitely have shifted left, but many of these counties include exurbs/rurals that have stalled this a bit