As expected, incumbent President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will face off in the 2024 presidential election. Likely because of the predictable outcome, voter turnout across the nation has been low in comparison to past primaries. The same held true in Tennessee.
More: Tennessee’s higher turnout in 2020 split largely along party lines
Presidential election years, in particular, historically have high voter turnout. But this year’s primaries in Tennessee saw a turnout of over 710,000 compared to more than 914,000 in 2020 — a more than 22% drop.
Democrats ‘commit’ to Biden
While the Republican primary ballot was chockfull of candidates, for Democrats, the ballot was limited to one name: Joe Biden.
Madison resident Larry Buggs said living through both Trump and Biden presidencies confirmed his support for the sitting president come November.
“You might not like either one of them, but you got to weigh which one you think is best for you and the country,” he said. “I’m basing my opinion on what I’ve seen Biden do versus what the other guy has done: cause destruction, division, discrimination and all the above.”
Biden landed 92% of the vote from Tennessee Democrats, but close to 8% marked that they were “uncommitted.” (Meanwhile, less than 1% of Republicans voted “uncommitted.”)
The number of uncommitted Democratic votes was lower in Tennessee than in Michigan, but points to recent liberal efforts in that state and beyond to voice dissatisfaction during the primaries.
Some Middle Tennessee voters, like Amanda Hill, showed up to the polls to express their frustration with the lack of options. In Madison, Hill was one of the voters who decided to cast a ballot for no one.
“I just came here because I wanted to vote uncommitted, so that the DNC knows that I’m not going to settle for Joe Biden as my only option,” she said.
Hill said she’s frustrated with Biden’s support of Israel in the war on Gaza. She says that, come November, if Biden and Trump are her only options, she will be voting third party.
Local races drove turnout for some
There wasn’t too much on the ballot across the state, but Rutherford County resident Cassie Bagwell says she looked up every candidate before voting — and made plans to make sure her family got out to the polls as well.
“I literally just spoke with my husband. I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to go vote,’ and then we have a parent-teacher conference here, at this elementary school, where he is going to meet me here. And we’re going to have that conference, and he’s going to come and vote. So, I made sure he was ready to,” she said. “As for my other family, I sent a mass text out.”
Crystal Owens was one of the few voters who came out to her Murfreesboro polling place on Election Day. She says it’s the local elections that matter the most.
“I think people forget it’s the lower-level government that we need to be paying the closest attention to,” Owens said. “People show out for the big ones, but all the things that affect us happen at the state level. And people really need to be paying attention to that.
The few local races included Sumner County, which had six open seats for county school board.
With several competitive school board primaries on the Republican ballot, not one of the four candidates endorsed by the ultraconservative Sumner County Constitutional Republicans won their race.
More: WPLN’s in-depth look into the Constitutional Republicans’ efforts
Perhaps the tightest race was in District 4, where Wade Evans eked out a 51% victory — a difference of just 42 votes — over a SCCR-backed candidate.
Constitutional Republicans won a majority of seats on the Sumner County Commission in 2022 and had been seeking to take over the school board.
The candidate the group endorsed for general sessions judge also lost.
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