Even as the country was sending Washington, D.C., into two years of potential gridlock by electing a divided Congress on Tuesday, Republicans surprisingly tightened their grip on Tennessee.
Not only will the Volunteer State see a Republican governor succeed another one for the first time in 150 years, it will send a Republican woman to the Senate for the first time in history.
That woman, U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, not only won but won by nearly 11 percentage points in a race with popular former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen that many thought was still too close to call going into Election Day. She will succeed Chattanooga’s Bob Corker, who chose to step down after two terms.
Franklin businessman Bill Lee easily won the governor’s race by nearly 20 percentage points over former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean.
Republicans also retained their 7-2 advantage in Tennessee U.S. House seats. Indeed, while there will be three new faces in the House delegation, the parties that held the seats won no less than 63.9 percent of the vote.