Gov. Bill Haslam took his re-election easily, amassing 70 percent of the vote in both the state and in Rutherford County. His Democratic opponent, the largely unknown Charles V. “Charlie” Brown, got 23 percent of votes around the state and 21.34 percent in the county.
Of the five candidates running as independents or under minor parties, only Shaun Crowell of the Constitution Party and John Jay Hooker, who ran as an independent this year, got more than one percent of the vote.
The race for U.S Senate reflected a widespread victory for the GOP across the country, as well as a long-standing trend of midterm elections being hard on the party of the sitting president.
Republican Lamar Alexander won re-election with 62 percent of the vote
Murfreesboro native and MTSU graduate Lenda Sherrell lost to Republican incumbent Scott DesJarlais in the state’s 4th Congressional District, in spite of DesJarlais’s multiple scandals.
Sidelines was present at Sherrell’s election watch party at Mayday Brewery in Murfreesboro.
Votes for DesJarlais by precinct:
Votes for Sherrell by precinct:
Votes across the 4th Congressional District:
Tennesseans voted “Yes” on all four proposed amendments to the state constitution. The constitution will now explicitly state that it guarantees no protection of the rights of women seeking abortions.
The document will also give the Governor and state Legislature the power to select appellate and Supreme Court judges, bar the passage of laws that would increase state income tax, and allow state-run lotteries that benefit veterans’ non-profits.
The most tightly contested vote was for Amendment 1. Tennessee has the loosest regulations on abortion clinics in the southeast because of a state Supreme Court that has repeatedly ruled against restrictions in favor of women’s privacy.
Opponents of the Amendment fear that its passing will give a strongly conservative Legislature the power to introduce measures that will make it more difficult to get an abortion in the state.
See a breakdown of the most prevalent words used in the discussion on the amendment over Twitter here.
Amendment 1 by voting precinct:
Cities across Tennessee got the opportunity to vote in a referendum to allow wine to be sold in grocery stores, where its sale had previously been restricted to liquor stores.
Murfreesboro and Smyrna both voted heavily in favor of the referendum, which means that area grocery stores can begin carrying wine in 2016.
The referendums came out of a bill, sponsored by Murfreesboro state Sen. Bill Ketron, that was passed into law this year after eight years of failing in the state legislature.
By voting precinct:
