Tennessee’s gerrymandered election maps hold up, but not as well as in past cycles

Tennessee Republicans won the popular vote in down-ballot races last week, but gerrymandering  allowed them to win even more seats than vote totals would have indicated.

The GOP received around 54% of the vote in Tennessee’s nine congressional races while likely winning eight of them, or 89% of the seats, an analysis of election data by Lookout shows. In the state House, state Republicans received 58% of the votes cast while winning 69 of the 99 districts, or 70%.

Republicans achieved this outcome by drawing a state House map in 2022 and a U.S. House map in 2026 that gerrymandered districts to dilute Democratic Party votes. Democrats won 44% of congressional votes cast and 41% of state House votes. But Republican margins of victory were narrowed, particularly in the state’s congressional races.

During the 2022 and 2024 election cycles, Republicans handily won eight of the state’s nine congressional seats. This year’s mid-cycle redistricting narrowed Republican margins of victory in U.S. House districts 5 to 9 because of gerrymandering.

Democrats lost those five districts by less than 5% this year, compared to 2024, when President Donald Trump won those same districts by 20-25% over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. 

The narrow margins were also boosted by a political environment in which Democrats won the popular vote by 13%, versus 2024, when the party lost it by 1.5%. 

Kent Syler, a political science professor at Middle Tennessee State University, said Republicans were fortunate to lose only one congressional seat Tuesday night. 

“Tennessee was an afterthought, but this is what can happen in wave elections,” he said. 

The new map, enacted during a May legislative session, allowed Republicans to flip Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, previously held by Memphis Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen. But the party likely lost Tennessee’s 4th Congressional District, resulting in no numerical change in House seats held by each party statewide.

Democrat Victoria Broderick currently leads U.S. Rep. Scott DeJarlais in the 4th district by about 285 votes, but the race has not been officially called. About 700 provisional ballots remain to be counted in the 4th as of Nov. 12, and about 600 are in the Democratic stronghold of Nashville, where Broderick won about 75% of the vote on election night. 

Those ballots will be counted on Monday, Nov. 16, after which the race can likely be officially called.

Broderick’s win would be the only Democratic win in Tennessee’s U.S. House map. It would effectively neutralize the redistricting enacted to help Republicans win all nine of the state’s congressional districts. 

Democrats did manage to flip six state House seats, and should control up to 30 of the lower chamber’s seats. The party officially won 29 seats, but in a Memphis state House district, Democrat G.A. Hardaway’s death meant neither party nominated a candidate, and write-in candidate John Bradley won.