By Michelle Price
Special to the UCBJ
UPPER CUMBERLAND – Despite last week’s national presidential election results, the Upper Cumberland region maintains favor to the right wing with a strong Republican showing. In every county throughout the Upper Cumberland, President Donald J. Trump garnered a higher percentage of the total vote than he received in 2016.
In a year with record turnouts, voters in counties across the region voted in favor of Trump by 10-24 percentage points higher than the state as a whole. Although he only received 60.73% of the vote statewide, Trump’s percentage of the total vote ranged from 70.77% in Putnam County to 85.34% of the vote in Macon County, and was 77.33% across the U.C. region.
Former Vice-President Joe Biden’s percentage of the total vote ranged from 13.78% in Macon County to 27.34% of the vote in Putnam County, well short of the 37.41% of the total vote that he received statewide. The 21.35% of the vote across the region is one-third of the total Trump received.
This red wave is not something new in 2020. Although Trump received an almost identical percentage of the statewide vote from 2016 to 2020, his U.C. vote increased by over two percentage points in 2020, garnering 124,707 votes in 2020 compared to 98,876 in 2016.
The state of Tennessee no longer registers voters by party. All primaries are held as open elections and voters may choose to request the party ballot of their choice.
Party doesn’t play a significant role in most county races throughout the region, but in state and national races it definitely does. Voters in the U.C. reelected every incumbent legislator in the region. Of those, only one John Mark Windle, of Livingston, serves as a Democrat.
