United States presidential election in Tennessee, 1976

United States presidential election in Tennessee, 1976
November 2, 1976

 
Nominee Jimmy Carter Gerald Ford
Party Democratic Republican
Home state Georgia Michigan
Running mate Walter Mondale Bob Dole
Electoral vote 10 0
Popular vote 825,879 633,969
Percentage 55.94% 42.94%
President before election

Gerald Ford
Republican

 Elected President

Jimmy Carter
Democratic

The 1976 United States presidential election in Tennessee was held on November 2, 1976. The Democratic Party candidate, former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter won the state of Tennessee with 56% of the vote against Republican Party candidate, President Gerald Ford,[1] carrying the state's 10 electoral votes.

Carter, a native Southerner from neighboring Georgia, carried Tennessee with a 13% margin of victory against incumbent Ford. The Watergate scandal had severely damaged Ford's predecessor, Richard Nixon, who had resigned in 1974 as a result, and the Republican Party as a whole. The relatively unknown Carter campaigned as a Washington outsider free of the corruption of Watergate, and thus appealed to many voters in the country, including Tennessee.

As was normal during the time, Carter carried Western Tennessee and Middle Tennessee, the most Democratic regions in the state, by landslide margins, which included the major cities of Memphis and Nashville, the state capital. Carter even made inroads in traditionally Republican East Tennessee, though Ford kept the region in his column with his wins in the major cities of Chattanooga and Knoxville. Carter even outperformed fellow Southern Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 results by 0.44%.

As of the 2016 presidential election, this is the last presidential election in which the Democratic candidate won Tennessee with a majority of the popular vote. Bill Clinton would carry the state in both his 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns, though with pluralities, even with Tennessee native Al Gore on the tickets. This is also the last election in which Williamson County, Sullivan County, Madison County, Hamblen County, Cumberland County, McMinn County, Loudon County, Monroe County, Rhea County, and Chester County voted for the Democratic candidate.

References

  1. ↑ "1976 Presidential General Election Results - Tennessee". Retrieved May 10, 2016.
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