Historically GOP areas in Shelby Co. stayed red
Analysis: House candidates fared better than president
Faced with an unpopular incumbent president and the changing political makeup of suburbs nationwide, two Tennessee house districts seemed likely to flip.
Instead, Republicans held onto districts 83 and 97. But the precinct-level vote totals show just how purple eastern Shelby County — East Memphis and the suburbs — really are, at least on the presidential level.
President Donald Trump fared worse than the Republican statehouse candidates in the majority of precincts in districts 97 and 83, according to The Commercial Appeal’s analysis of the precinct-level data.
The president lost support in some historically Republican areas in Shelby County, but that loss of support did not carry over down the ballot and those historically Republican areas stayed Republican in almost every other race.
In 83, Trump lagged Mark White, the longtime incumbent, in terms of percentage of the vote in 13 of 16 precincts. John Gillespie, in 97, outperformed the president in eight of 15 precincts, though his race was much closer than White’s.
Analysis from The CA, Tennessee election mappers and firms that ran, or helped, the House District 83 and 97 races show that the wealthy, suburban parts of Memphis and Germantown did tilt blue.
“It looks like Biden actually won the two of the districts collectively by about 1,000 votes,” said Cole Perry of Perry Strategies, which worked on the Gillespie and White campaigns. “If you put them all together, Biden won 36,875 votes, and Trump won 35,458.”
Gillespie and White won by a combined 3,068 votes across those same two districts. That came amid a significant drop in turnout further down the ballot, which is common in state and local races.
“Why I think Trump did worse than some of the local candidates is because in some of these smaller races, you know, your average House District is 70,000 people or so,” Perry said. “And for all intents and purposes, you’re running a race in your own neighborhood. ... Well, I think Mark White and John Gillespie, even Patti Possel to an extent, did slightly better than federal Republicans because they were able to run a truly local race.”
Local races, local issues
While campaigning for the seat in district 83, Jerri Green sought to use her opponent’s support for school vouchers against him.
White, the education committee chairman in the Tennessee House of Representatives, supported Gov. Bill Lee’s controversial education savings account proposal.
“I think what a lot of people assumed — [and] it was kind of disproven — was that his kind of embrace, or at least former embrace, of ... the school voucher bills kind of hurt him. But what I think was lost in that conversation is that a lot of people in East Memphis, in Germantown [do] not send their kids to public schools,” Perry said.
That tactic, which may have worked in other reliably Democratic Memphis precincts in the district, wasn’t as effective in the wealthy Poplar, Walnut Grove corridor.
“The kind of wealthy suburban resident who Jerri Green really needed to pull over the edge was not the same person that was going to be swayed by Mark White’s position on vouchers,” Perry said.
Emily Passini, a Democratic strategist and principal at Greenlight Strategies, which worked on campaigns for Gabby Salinas, the Democratic nominee in 97, and Green, noted, like Cole did, that the statehouse districts saw significant drop off in voters and voters, like most elections, did not have as much information about down-ballot candidates.
“One way in a ‘normal’ election … to combat that is by doing face-to-face contact and knocking on a lot of doors. And that just wasn’t possible this year and so I think that had a significant impact on Democratic performance down ballot, as well,” Passini said.
The Salinas and Green campaigns did not do traditional door-knocking. They did leave literature at voters doors, but, because of the pandemic, they opted not to engage voters face-to-face. White and Gillespie, on the other hand, knocked on doors throughout the campaign season, targeting voters.
The districts are small enough, Passini noted, that candidates can target every voter for a door-knock.
“You have an ability, as a candidate running for statehouse, to literally knock on every door of a targeted voter you’re trying to reach. And so when you take that tool out of the toolbox, it really hurts. But I also don’t want to say that, I think that Democrats should have been out knocking doors… It was just a judgment call that everybody had to make depending on the circumstances of their race,” Passini said.
In Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, at least one local Democratic party, started a door-knocking operation for former Vice President Joe Biden after his national campaign did not pursue one in key states.
Bartlett holds the key House District 97
In 2018, when now retiring Rep. Jim Coley fought off a challenge from Allan Creasy, Bartlett played a big role. The three Bartlett precincts accounted for 44.8% of Coley’s vote total. He lost the other 12 precincts by about 1400 votes.
The same pattern played out in 2020 with Gillespie, not Coley, on the ballot. The three Bartlett precincts supplied 44.9% of Gillespie’s votes. In all other precincts, Salinas beat Gillespie by a combined 3,227 votes and won eight of the 15 precincts in the district.
Perry noted that Gillespie’s strategy had been to run up the score in the Bartlett precincts and one East Memphis precinct.
“The idea behind I think John’s strategy was that if he kept up his margins there, he could afford to lose a little bit… in a lot of the other precincts. Basically, Gabby was in the same boat that John was — that she was going to pull 70% or a little bit less in a lot of the Cordova precincts,” Perry said.
“As long as John did better than Trump did in East Memphis. He was going to be fine. And that’s exactly what happened. He ended up barely winning.”
In precinct 05700, a huge precinct that includes the land between Walnut Grove Road and Poplar Avenue from Highland Street to Mendenhall Road, Gillespie outperformed Trump by about 11 percentage points.