Donald Trump dominates among Tennessee voters
NASHVILLE — Republican Donald Trump cruised to an overwhelming win in Tennessee on Tuesday, grabbing the state’s 11 electoral votes Tuesday after a presidential election campaign that wreaked havoc among Republicans in the state.
Trump captured 61 percent of the state’s votes compared to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 35 percent.
Robin Davis, an executive administrator for a company that owns funeral homes and cemeteries, said she voted for Trump because she thinks he can make “the changes that need to be made.”
Davis, who cast her vote at a west Nashville elementary school, said she also believes Clinton ran a negative campaign and that “Hillary hasn’t proven anything to me over 30 years.”
“I don’t like it when people beat others down to lift themselves up, and that’s what I feel like she’s doing,” she said.
On the eve of early voting, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam publicly rejected Trump’s candidacy and said he would write in the name of another Republican on his ballot. Several county Republican parties filed resolutions supporting Trump.
The governor wouldn’t tell reporters on Tuesday who he voted for.
“That’s one of the great things of the privacy of the voting booth,” Haslam said.
Voter Barbara Humphries cast her ballot for Trump in Dover after initially considering not voting for either
“I voted for Trump because … he more nearly captures my values as opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage and all the other things I just can’t abide.”
— BARBARA HUMPHRIES, DONALD TRUMP VOTER
candidate following the bitter campaign. But the retired banker said she ended up voting for Trump because she opposes Clinton’s positions on abortion rights and same sex marriage.
“I’m completely disappointed in our government, that we couldn’t come up with two better candidates than that,” Humphries said. “I voted for Trump because of the people that surround him and he more nearly captures my values as opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage and all the other things I just can’t abide.”
Tim Bercik, a Stewart County sheet metal worker, said he agreed with Trump’s campaign motto.
“I want to make America great again, man,” Bercik said. “I don’t know anybody that actually supports Hillary. … He’s the only one that I’ve heard that can get us back on track.”
Robert Engelhardt, a 67-yearold Republican, voted for Trump at Shady Grove Elementary in suburban Memphis. He said the country cannot afford to have Hillary Clinton in charge. He said he doesn’t trust her.
“I think that the Clintons and Hillary are the biggest thieves that ever walked this planet,” Engelhardt said.
Clinton had all but conceded heavily Republican Tennessee for much of the campaign, but her supporters were energized late in the race by the release of a video recording of Trump boasting about groping women and hoped Clinton’s performance in urban areas might provide a boost to Democrats in legislative races.
But those efforts fell short in Nashville and Knoxville, while Republicans picked up two seats formerly held by Democrats in rural areas.
Blayne Cowan, 18, of Nashville, voted in his first presidential race Tuesday. He said he didn’t like Trump or Clinton.
“I voted for Donald Trump — not on the basis that I want him to be president, but on the basis that sort of pick your poison,” he said. “I picked the poison that I liked the best.”