U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Chattanooga holds his wife’s, Brenda Fleischmann, hand in the air during a victory party at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Chattanooga late Thursday evening after winning the 3rd Congressional District GOP primary.
AT A GLANCE• Scottie Mayfield would have won the race if not for the Chattanooga area. Runner-up Mayfield lost Hamilton County by 6,769 votes, surrendering the overall district to U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann by 6,172. Mayfield won the other 10 3rd District counties collectively by 597 votes and 2 percentage points.• Weston Wamp played well where Zach Wamp represented, but nowhere else. The 25-year-old son of former U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp squeaked out a 101-vote victory over U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann in Hamilton County. Overall, in counties his father represented at some point, Weston Wamp pulled 32 percent of the vote. He got 13 percent everywhere else.• McMinn and Monroe counties didn’t give one candidate the advantages he expected. Turnout wasn’t as high as election officials predicted. That hurt Mayfield, an Athens, Tenn., resident who captured a smaller victory margin in his home county of McMinn (29 percentage points) than neighboring Monroe (34 points.)• Do the Democrats have a chance in November? Despite contested congressional primaries for both parties, conservatism reigned as districtwide Republicans outvoted Democrats by a 3-to-1 margin.
When they voted for their nominee, six out of 10 Republicans in Tennessee’s 3rd Congressional District chose someone other than U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann.
Worse yet, the incumbent lost Hamilton County to a 25-year-old and surrendered half the district’s other 10 counties to East Tennessee’s most popular milk and ice cream man.
Nevertheless, Fleischmann won the nomination. But his victory was a little more predictable than it may seem.
A 61 percent anti-incumbent vote doesn’t mean as much when “two big names” – as Fleischmann described Scottie Mayfield and Weston Wamp on election night – split almost all of it. Pulling to a virtual tie in Hamilton County and winning four other counties by sizable margins, Fleischmann took advantage of his opponents’ stumbles and emerged with an 8-point victory at 39 percent.