Romney easily carried Tennessee's 11 electoral votes, winning 59.42% of the vote in the state to Obama's 39.04%.[2] Romney's 20.38% margin of victory was the strongest performance by any presidential candidate in the state since Richard Nixon's 1972 landslide. Tennessee has not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since 1996, when Bill Clinton won the state and many other states of the South, and Tennessee has not given a majority to a Democratic nominee since fellow Southerner Jimmy Carter carried it in 1976. Thus, Tennessee has been seen as part of the modern-day red wall in the 21st century. After 1996, the state has been growing more Republican with each election.[3]
As consistent with the rest of the country, Obama carried heavily populated and diverse counties. The largest county, Shelby, was won by Obama by a 26.05% margin due to it being home to Memphis, Tennessee's largest city. In addition, the home of the state capital of Nashville, Davidson County, went to Obama by 18.53%. Hardeman and Haywood counties, both low-populated suburbs of Memphis, also went to Obama due to their high African American populations (42.2%[4] and 50.6%,[5] respectively). However, rural areas – including areas in the northwestern portion of the state that had long favored Democratic candidates – saw heavy margins for Romney, allowing him to offset Obama's wins in large cities. The eastern region of the state in Appalachia, some of the most historically Republican and Unionist counties in the country, saw margins of over 70% for the Republican ticket.[6]
Romney also flipped two counties, Houston and Jackson, to the Republican column. Both of these majority-white counties had been Democratic strongholds with their strong ties to secessionism: they had each only voted for a Republican presidential nominee once prior to this election, in 1928 and 1920, respectively.[7] Thus, Obama became the first Democrat to be elected without either county. As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last time in which Hardeman County was won by the Democratic presidential nominee. This is also the first and only time that a Democratic president has won re-election without ever carrying Tennessee.
[1] 4.48 pp
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