2008 United States presidential election in Tennessee


The 2008 United States presidential election in Tennessee took place on November 4, 2008, and was part of the 2008 United States presidential election. Voters chose 11 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Tennessee was won by Republican nominee John McCain by 15.06%. Prior to the election, 17 news organizations considered Tennessee a win for McCain. Early polling in Tennessee gave a solid edge to McCain over Democrat Barack Obama by up to a 20-point margin. The expected "landslide" by McCain in Tennessee meant there was little campaigning there. Most news organizations immediately called Tennessee for McCain as soon as all the polls in the state closed. McCain even improved upon George W. Bush's performance in 2004, a much better year nationally for the Republicans. This was the first time since 1960 when Tennessee did not back the overall winning candidate in a presidential election and the most recent presidential election as of 2016 in which the Democratic candidate received more than 40% of the vote. Moreover, this was the most recent presidential election as of 2016 where both Jackson and Houston counties voted for the Democratic nominee. In Stewart County, McCain won where no Republican had ever won at the Presidential level before.

Primaries

Predictions

There were 16 news organizations who made state-by-state predictions of the election. Here are their last predictions before election day:
McCain won every single pre-election poll, and each by a double-digit margin of victory. The final 3 polls averaged McCain leading 55% to 40%.

Fundraising

John McCain raised a total of $2,941,065 in the state. Barack Obama raised $3,481,341.

Advertising and visits

Obama spent $518,659. The Republican ticket spent just $3,526. Obama visited the state once, going to Nashville. McCain visited the state twice, visiting Nashville and Blountville.

Analysis

Despite narrowly voting for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 when native son Al Gore was on the ticket as Vice President, the state has steadily been trending Republican since then. George W. Bush narrowly carried the state in 2000 over Tennessee native Gore and easily won in 2004 over John Kerry. The state was one of five states that swung even more Republican in 2008 with John McCain soundly defeating Barack Obama in the Volunteer State. 2008 marked the first time since 1960 whereby the state was carried by the losing presidential candidate.
McCain won both East Tennessee and Middle Tennessee by landslide margins. Historically, East Tennessee, which is a part of Appalachia, is one of the few ancestrally Republican areas of the South. Most of its residents strongly opposed secession during the Civil War. They identified with the GOP after the return of peace and have remained in the Republican fold through good times and bad ever since. Some of the region's counties are among the few in the country to have never supported a Democrat for president.
however, Middle Tennessee has Democratic roots based on liberal economic policies, most famously Franklin D. Roosevelt's Tennessee Valley Authority. Middle Tennessee voted strongly for Bill Clinton of neighboring Arkansas, but Middle Tennessee native Al Gore narrowly lost the region in 2000—a loss that ultimately cost him Tennessee, and the election. In contrast, it was one of the few regions in the country which voted more Republican than in 2004. This is largely due to a growing social conservative trend in the region, particularly in the Nashville suburbs; some of the most politically active churches in the state are located there.
On the other hand, Barack Obama did improve relatively well upon John Kerry's performances in the traditionally Democratic cities of Nashville and Memphis. In the former, support amongst progressive whites led to a 3-2 victory for Obama in Davidson County. In Memphis, heavy African American turnout ensured him the largest margin in the state in Shelby County, although far from enough to outweigh his losses everywhere else in the state. McCain, however, carried the third- and fourth- most populated cities of Chattanooga in Hamilton County as well as Knoxville in Knox County.
During the same election, at the state level, Republicans picked up four seats in the Tennessee House of Representatives and three seats in the Tennessee Senate to obtain control of both chambers of the state legislature for the first time since Reconstruction.
, this is the last election in which Houston County and Jackson County voted for the Democratic candidate or where the Democratic candidate won over a million votes.

Results

Results breakdown

By county

By congressional district

John McCain swept the state and carried seven of the state's nine congressional districts, including three districts held by Democrats. Barack Obama carried the state's two congressional districts anchored by the two largest cities of Memphis and Nashville.
DistrictMcCainObamaRepresentative
69.77%28.77%David Davis
69.77%28.77%Phil Roe
64.21%34.28%John J. Duncan, Jr.
61.87%36.86%Zach Wamp
64.06%34.25%Lincoln Davis
42.94%55.85%Jim Cooper
61.87%36.59%Bart Gordon
64.76%34.29%Marsha Blackburn
56.01%42.73%John S. Tanner
22.51%76.92%Steve Cohen

Electors

Technically the voters of Tennessee cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. Tennessee is allocated 11 electors because it has 9 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 11 electors, who pledge to vote for their candidate and his or her running mate. Whoever wins the majority of votes in the state is awarded all 11 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as a faithless elector.
The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 15, 2008, to cast their votes for president and vice president. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols.
The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All 11 were pledged to John McCain and Sarah Palin:
  1. Sara Sellers
  2. Jim Haslam
  3. Wayne Cropp
  4. Lisa Wheeler
  5. Beth Campbell
  6. Albert McCall
  7. Shirley Curry
  8. Marilucile Counce
  9. Colin Richmond
  10. Winfield Dunn
  11. Chrystal Horn