Staff Photo by Dan Henry / The Chattanooga Times Free Press- 3/1/16. Voters enter Concord Baptist Church in East Brainerd on Super Tuesday, March 1, 2016.Local political party officials point to voter turnout and a frustration with the governing establishment as key drivers for Republican Donald Trump’s presidential election victory Tuesday.
Trump carried Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama with overwhelming support among white, rural voters. Although Hillary Clinton did better among women than men, she failed to win a majority of any county in the Chattanooga region.
While the Trump campaign benefited from inherent red state advantages in the region, Republican officials said they consider the presidential election a matter of striking a blow against the establishment.
“What we witnessed last night was an historical moment for our country where the average person expressed their opposition to the D.C. political establishment of both parties,” Hamilton County Republican Party Chairman Tony Sanders said in a statement Wednesday.
In Hamilton County, Trump carried more than 55 percent of the vote in the most competitive of the counties in the region. In surrounding rural counties in Southeast Tennessee, Northwest Georgia and Northeast Alabama, Trump averaged more than three fourths of the vote total, scoring bigger wins in most counties than did Republican Mitt Romney four years ago or John McCain eight years ago in their unsuccessful races against President Obama.