Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States
Both Adams and Jackson belonged to the same Party, and that Party had divided out into several different factions with Adams being the Northern faction's nominee and Jackson being the Southern faction's nominee.[5] Jackson would win the popular vote and would have the most electoral votes, but he did not have enough Electoral College votes to win outright.[5] The election went to the House of Representatives where one of the three top vote getters would be elected president. The three were, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and Henry Clay of Kentucky. Clay, who was then the Speaker of the House of Representatives, liked Adam's programs for internal improvements so much that he chose to swing his support to Adams, and thus Adams won the vote in the House of Representatives.[5] After Adams was inaugurated, Adams decided to appoint Clay to be his Secretary of State, which outraged Jackson and his supporters.[5]
Between 1825 and 1826, Jackson's supporters were gearing up to have Jackson run in 1828. While Jackson wouldn't publicly commit to running, he was essentially planning on running to win in 1828.[1] Surrounded by loyal advisors, the Jacksonian Party was formed in 1826 when Jackson supporters began running under the Jacksonian Party.[1] The Jacksonian Party, aided by New York Politician Martin Van Buren, would go on to become the dominant political party in the United States from 1829 to 1839.[7] During this period, the party in Tennessee was still floundering as it did not have any formal party structure for the first few years, however that not matter as long as Jackson was in the White House.
When Jackson retired from the White House, Vice PresidentMartin Van Buren would be Jackson's handpicked successor in the 1836.[7] Now with a formidable opposition party with the Whigs, Jackson's Democratic Party had issues getting Van Buren elected, especially in Jackson's home state of Tennessee. Jackson campaigned heavily for Van Buren, but Tennessee native SenatorHugh Lawson White would actually carry the state's electoral votes over Van Buren.[2] This would start a trend of Tennessee voters only electing Whig Party Candidates in each Presidential Election from the Election of 1836 to the Election of 1852.[2]
For other offices during this time, it was a mix bag of Whigs and Democrats until the Whig Party's collapse in 1854.[8] In 1856, Tennessee would vote for a Democrat for the first time since 1836, when Tennessee voted for James Buchanan for President.[2] By the time the Election of 1860 rolled around, the political climate had dramatically shifted due the sectional strife around the issue of Slavery, and its expansion into the territories.[9] In that election, Tennessee would narrowly vote for the Constitutional Union Party nominee, John Bell due to a majority of Tennesseans supported preserving the Union.[10] By June 1861, Tennessee voters would pass an Ordinance of Secession leading to Tennessee becoming the last Southern state to join the Confederacy.[10]
During the years Republicans had control of the General Assembly, they expanded the right to vote to newly freed slaves, disenfranchised former Confederates, and passed a law that would allow the Governor to declare Martial Law in individual counties in order to combat the influence of the Ku Klux Klan.[14] However, by 1869 Republican dominance in state politics began to subside as Democrats in the state took control of state government. The Democratic Party would then work to undo the reforms enacted by the Brownlow administration over the next few years.
By the time Reconstruction ended in 1877, Democrats were firmly in control of Tennessee Government, but that control came at an ultimate cost to many of the state's African American voters. From the end of the Civil War until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, African American's voted exclusively for Republicans, but when Southern Conservative Democrats regained control of Southern Legislatures they would enact a series of racist laws known as Jim Crow Laws, that specifically codified racist views into law.[15] Because of these laws passed after the end of Reconstruction, generations of African American citizens would face extreme racial discrimination in everyday life, the rise of lynching, and the rise of segregation.
Throughout the rest of the 19th century, Tennessee voters would only elect and vote mainly for Democrats to the General Assembly, the Governor's office, and federal offices.[2] Between 1869 and 1900, only two Republicans would be elected Governor of Tennessee those were Dewitt Clinton Senter and Alvin Hawkins.[16] As the 19th century faded into the new 20th century, Tennessee voters still preferred the Democratic Party. However, the new century would test that allegiance to voting straight Democratic.
Around 1900 the Temperance movement had really started to gain momentum in the state, and by 1908 the prohibitionists were had a powerful ally in newspaper publisher Edward Carmack.[17] Carmack was challenging Democratic Governor Malcom Patterson who was against Prohibition, and the election was bitter until the very end when Patterson narrowly beat out Carmack.[17] After the election, Carmack was gunned down in Nashville, and Democratic Governor Malcom Patterson would eventually pardon the man who shot Carmack. As a result of this, Republicans would recapture the Governor's office in 1911 when Republican Ben Hooper was elected.[17]
The Democratic Party in Tennessee was still the dominant party throughout the New Deal era, and gave rise to the political bosses in both Memphis and Nashville.[17] In Memphis, E.H. Crump rose to power using his influence statewide politics to build political power in Memphis and to get folks that he approved of elected to office. He welded a lot of power until the mid-1940s before his influence began to wane and finally ended in the 1950s.
In the 1950s, Tennessee voters began shifting away from the Democratic Party as the Civil Rights Movement began to pick up steam. Since 1952, Tennessee has only voted Democratic in Presidential Election four times in 1964, 1976, 1992, and 1996.[20] Since the late 1960s Republicans began to chip away at the control that the Democratic Party held in the state starting in 1967 when Howard Baker was elected to the US Senate,[21] followed by Bill Brock's election to the US Senate[21] and with the election of Winfield Dunn to the Governor's office in 1971.[16]
Democratic Control continued to wane throughout the remainder of the 20th century as Republicans continued to gain traction with conservatives in the state. By 2000, Tennessee was in the spotlight again, this time for election between then Vice PresidentAl Gore of Carthage, Tennessee and George W. Bush of Texas.[22] Gore campaigned heavily throughout the state, but by the time the polls had closed George W. Bush had picked up the state's electoral votes.[23]
After 2000, the Democratic Party's control continued to slip, and the last time a Democrat won statewide was in 2006 when then Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen had won re-election.[24] After 2011, the Democratic Party was fully out of power for the first time since Reconstruction.[3] Since then, the Party is considered to be irrelevant in Tennessee Politics as Republicans have firm control over state government.[25]
On April 6, 2023, three Democrats Rep. Justin Jones, Rep. Gloria Johnson, and Rep. Justin J. Pearson faced expulsion from the Tennessee House of Representatives, the first since Franklin Republican Jeremy Durham was expelled in 2016.[26] It was over Jones, Pearson, and Johnson's protest for gun violence prevention and them standing in the well of the House. Speaker Cameron Sexton of Crossville compared their protest to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.[27] Republicans voted to expel both Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson from the House, while voting to not expel Knoxville Rep. Gloria Johnson.[26] Subsequently, Jones and Pearson were both sent back to the House by both their local governments and by voters in their respective districts.[28][29][30][31]
Currently Tennessee's Congressional Delegation contains only one Democrat out of the state's nine U.S. House of Representatives seats. Prior to the 2022 Midterm Elections, the Republican Super Majority redrew Nashville into three Congressional Districts to ensure that they have a significant Super Majority in Tennessee's Congressional delegation.[33] The last time Tennessee's Congressional Delegation had a plurality of Democrats was as recent as 2010 when Tennessee Democrats controlled 5 out of the state's 9 House Seats.[34]
Steve Cohen – Democrat, Congressman for Tennessee's 9th Congressional District
Statewide Offices
Currently Tennessee does not have an elected Democrat statewide. Tennessee has not elected a Democrat statewide since former GovernorPhil Bredesen won re-election in 2006.[24]
Hendrell Remus became the first African American man in the history of the Tennessee Democratic Party to be Chair when he was elected in 2021. Prior to becoming Chair, Mr. Remus was Tennessee's Young Democrats of America National Committeeman. Mr. Remus was reelected Chair in 2023.
The Tennessee Democratic Party's leadership consists of a Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer who are elected by the State Executive Committee.[51] The State's Executive Committee consists of one man and one woman from each State Senate District.[52] On January 16, 2021, the Tennessee Democratic Party's State Executive Committee elected Hendrell Remus to be Chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party.[53][54] Mr. Remus became the first African American to be elected as Chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party.[54]
The Tennessee Democratic Party's Executive Committee consists of 66 elected members from each of Tennessee's 33 Senatorial Districts. Currently the Executive Committee has seven ex-officio members that represents groups that "facilitate communication between the bodies and to advance goals of Democrats in the State of Tennessee."[51]
Elected Members of the Tennessee Democratic Party's State Executive Committee
The Tennessee House of Representatives is the lower house of the Tennessee General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee.
Matthew Joseph Hill is an American talk show host, businessman, and politician who served as a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives from 2005 to 2021. Hill briefly served as Deputy Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives under appointment by House Speaker Rep. Glen Casada.
Beth Halteman Harwell is a member of the board of directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority and the former Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives. She served as State Representative for Nashville and is a former chair of the Tennessee Republican Party. First elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1988, Harwell served as a Republican Minority Whip and Commerce Committee chair before being elected to the Speakership. She is the first woman to serve as Tennessee's Speaker of the House. In 2017, she announced her candidacy for governor of Tennessee in the 2018 election.
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London Lamar is an American politician. A Democratic Party member, she serves in the Tennessee Senate representing district 33 since 2022. She was previously a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives from 2018 to 2022 representing District 91. During her time there, she was the youngest Tennessee State Representative in office. She was appointed to the Tennessee Senate in March 2022 by the Shelby County Commission after fellow Democrat Katrina Robinson was expelled due to her indictment on charges of wire fraud. Lamar was sworn in on March 8, 2022, and effectively resigned her house seat.
Jesse Chism is an American politician. He is a Democrat representing District 85 in the Tennessee House of Representatives.
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