Tennessee Primary Results Thread

12:12am: With all 259 precincts reporting, we are done, and the AP has called Diane Black the winner. She’s at 31, with Zelenik and Tracy at 30. Black beats Zelenik by 813 votes, while Zelenik takes 2nd over Tracy by a mere 15 votes. But there’s no runoff, so it’s academic. Black will face Brett Carter in November, who won the Dem primary 30-29-29 over Barry and Leming. Somewhere in there, too, the AP called TN-04 for Scott DesJarlais, who beat Jack Bailey 37-27 in the end. And with that, we’re done for the night.

11:32pm: Now we’re up to 96% reporting in TN-06. Black has retaken the lead, as I somewhat expected, as Sumner and Trousdale Counties finally came in. She’s at 31, with Zelenik and Tracy at 30. Black’s lead is 800, with only 11 precincts left to report, so I think this’ll hold for her. On the Dem side, it’s very tight too, with Brett Carter at 30, and Barry and Leming both at 29. Carter’s lead is only 158 votes.

11:16pm: Whoa! Late breaking excitement in TN-06. Jim Tracy shoots from 3rd to 1st, while Diane Black falls from 1st to 3rd. It’s now 31 Tracy, 31 Zelenik, 29 Black, with Tracy up by 300, with 88% reporting. Outstanding precincts are in Sumner and Putnam Counties. (Sumner is Black’s base, though, so maybe she can mount a comeback. Rutherford, Zelenik’s base, is through.)

11:13pm: Although, to Marceaux’s credit, he did at least break the 1% mark in TN-03, unlike TN-Gov. (Or, technically, the 0.7% mark.)

11:09pm: The AP has called TN-03 for Chuck Fleischmann. (And not Basil Marceaux, who’s batting 0-for-2 on the night.) Fleischmann beats Robin Smith 30-28, with a margin of 1,300, with 98% reporting. His Democratic opponent in this open seat in November will be J. Wolfe. (No, never heard of him (or her) either.)

10:58pm: In the other close race left that we’re following, in TN-06, with 74% reporting, Diane Black is at 31, with Zelenik and Tracy at 30. (Still.) Black’s lead is up to 800 votes, though.

10:56pm: No call yet in TN-03, but we’re near the end: with 95% reporting, Chuck Fleischmann is adding a little more distance on Robin Smith: 29-28, with a 900-vote margin.

10:34pm: Looks like Scott DesJarlais is going to be the GOP nominee in TN-04. With 74% in, the numbers there are still basically the same; he leads Jack Bailey 35-28.

10:32pm: We’ve jumped to 78% reporting in TN-09, and things are still pretty much the same: Cohen leads Herenton 79-21. Race card fail.

10:25pm: Here’s some interesting symmetry. The Democratic primary in TN-06 is almost equally tight. Bret Carter is in 1st at 31, followed by the previously unheralded H. Barry at 30 and Ben Leming (the guy I think we were supposed to be rooting for) at 28.

10:20pm: To approximately quote Dan Rather, TN-06 is tighter than a tick in a wet bathing suit on a hot day in a Volkswagen Bug full of clowns. With 58% reporting, Diane Black is at 31, with Zelenik and Tracy both at 30. Black’s lead is about 700 votes.

10:13pm: With 84% in, Chuck Fleischmann is just barely starting to pull ahead of Robin Smith in TN-03. They both at 29%, but Fleischmann has a lead of about 500 votes now.

10:09pm: The AP just called TN-08 for Stephen Fincher. With 67% in, Fincher’s at 51, with 25 for Kirkland and 22 for Flinn (who is most definitely not “in”).

10:03pm: The AP is only listing one precinct as reporting in TN-09, but they’ve already called the race. The Steve Cohen 81-19 lead over Willie Herenton still seems to be holding.

10:02pm: Wow, things are a tight three-way in TN-06 also. Black and Zelenik are both at 31, with Tracy at 30. Black’s lead is a mere 90 votes, with 38% reporting.

10:00pm: We’ve rounded the bend in most races now. With 75% reporting, in TN-03, it’s still 30-30 for Smith and Fleischmann. Smith leads by only 38 votes!

9:30pm: Thanks to Johnny Longtorso in comments (and his ability to navigate the awful Shelby Co. Elections website), we know that the 3:1 margin is TN-09 is indeed panning out. Except it’s for Steve Cohen, who leads Willie Herenton 81-19.

9:26pm: And with about 10% in in TN-08, Stephen Fincher is still far ahead, leading to many sighs of relief at 1 NRCC Plaza. Fincher’s at 50, with 28 for Kirkland and 19 for Flinn. (And if you’re wondering about TN-09, still no reports at all from there.)

9:25pm: Things are tightening up in TN-06 R, although only 5% are in, as Zelenik and Tracy counties are reporting more. It’s Black 35, Zelenik 31, Tracy 28.

9:21pm: In TN-04, with about 15% in, Scott DesJarlais leads Jack Bailey 34-28 in the GOP primary. I don’t know anything about these guys, but whoever wins will hope to ride the wave and the “Generic R” slot and hope it gets him over the top against Lincoln Davis.

9:19pm: With 16% reporting, things are still very tight in TN-03. Robin Smith is up 29-28 over Chuck Fleischmann with a 300 vote lead. Tim Gobble is at 18, sadly, meaning we’ll probably never get to see the Gobble-Fudge Act.

9:06pm: The Dem primary in TN-06, in an open seat race that the DCCC (or us) doesn’t seem to have put much stock in, there’s a pretty close race. Bret Carter leads Ben Leming 33-30.

9:03pm: First, let me point in Zach Wamp’s direction and assume my Nelson Muntz voice. HA HA! Now let’s look at the county-by-county results. The only county that Wamp seems to have won is his own county (Hamilton), and the only counties Ramsey seems to have won are is his own (Sullivan) and its immediate neighbor (Johnson). Haslam won everything else that’s reported anything, and that’s all she wrote.

9:00pm: Holy crap, the AP has already called TN-Gov. The big red check mark is next to Bill Haslam’s name. That’s with only 4% reporting. He’s at 52, with 27 for Wamp, 20 for Ramsey, and 0 for Marceaux.

8:58pm: We have only 1% reporting in TN-06, but the numbers seem to match Diane Black’s internal. She’s in the lead at 45, with 26 for Lou Ann Zelenik and 24 for Jim Tracy.

8:55pm: No precincts are reporting in TN-08, but it looks like there are a lot (more than 10,000) of early votes reported. In the GOP primary, humble gospel-singer/agribusiness mogul Stephen Fincher has a big lead at 50, with Ron Kirkland at 32 and George Flinn at 15.

8:52pm: Things are no better in the TN-03 primary. Basil Marceaux is also polling 0% there. It’s a pretty tight race between Robin Smith (at 30) and Chuck Fleischmann (at 28) with Tim Gobble in 3rd at 19. That’s with 2% reporting.

8:49pm: Things are very slow to get started here, but so far, Basil Marceaux is off to a great start here. He’s at 0% in the TN-Gov primary. Bill Haslam is at 53, with Zach Wamp at 27 and Ron Ramsey at 19. But that’s with just 1% reporting so far, so bear in mind there’s still time for all those Marceaux precincts to come in.


Here’s a question for you all to ponder, as we await results on this very unusual Thursday night edition of liveblogging: Basil Marceaux, as you may know, is somehow on the ballot for both TN-Gov and TN-03. With the expectation, of course, that he wins both of those races in November, which job should he choose? Is federal or state office a more appropriate vehicle for his particular, um, agenda?

Results:

     Associated Press | Politico | TN SoS

93 thoughts on “Tennessee Primary Results Thread”

  1. He would pick Governor I am sure. Marceaux has made it clear he wants the highest office he could obtain, because he wants power to implement his….um…..I guess you would call them policies….but more like streams of conscious thought in semi-verbalized form.

  2. i guess they knew the rest of the state will go so heavily for Basil Marceaux.com (notice, NO scar)they might as well call it for him.

  3. http://www.tennessean.com/arti

    Ten­nessee Demo­c­ra­tic Party chair­man Chip For­rester says the party may sue over errors in Shelby County.

    For­rester said vot­ers were turned away from polling sta­tions after elec­tion work­ers loaded early vot­ing lists from May into com­puter sys­tems instead of early vot­ing lists from the cur­rent pri­mary

  4. I didn’t even know about this guy. Ugh, this is a terrible cycle for candidates with awesome names. alas, I can hear the ghost of Chester Falling from OK-02 crying. (although chances are Gobble’s wingnut enough that we’d never see Gobble-Fudge anyway).

  5. a candidate surnamed Crangle. There is something about that race that just attracted people with funny names or something.

    btw, TN-08 just called for Fincher.

  6. Eric Swafford (HD-25) just got his birther ass handed to him by Cameron Sexton, 63-37. Swafford was one of the first to sign on to the birther train.

  7. I’m not 100% sure where the remaining votes are, but I’ve heard that Anderson County hasn’t reported much. However, among those unreported votes, I have it on good authority that Robin is doing very poorly. Is it too soon to say that Fleischmann will be the next congressman for TN-03?

  8. Kirkland lost his home county, Madison, by a huge margin. Jackson, the district’s largest city is in Madison, and I am wondering if Kirkland even carried the city. I haven’t seen the box numbers yet, as the state website is still down.

    Fincher – 7000

    Kirkland -4080

    Flinn – 1038

    Source (Post Politics): http://politics.nashvillepost….

    I starting betting on a Fincher win after I started hearing a lot of blow back about Kirkland’s negative mailer and television campaigns, but I never thought he’d collapse so bad as to get crushed in his home county.  

  9. She is in 2nd place in Rutherford County, where she was GOP chair. However, she still has time to pull ahead. She trails Tracy 43-41, with 20/48 reporting. She needs to do very well in the remaining precincts to win the race, as this is a big county. Good news for Black: She is winning Sumner county with 60%, and this appears to be the county where the most votes were cast. 10 precincts left there. Ya’ll should probably be rooting for Zelenik, as she will have the least amount of cash to transfer to NRCC once she gets put in Frontier program.  

  10. he only leads by 800 votes, but with 94% of the vote in that could be enough. anyone know if most outstanding precincts are in Smith strongholds?

  11. Who is less obnoxious in TN-3: Smith, or Fleischmann ?

    Smith, in quite a few ways is rather slimy. Still, that doesn’t make Fleischmann good.

    Also, since we’re mentioning odd names, Fleischmann just happens to be named after a truly awful brand of hard liquor that’s popular in Wisconsin. But then again, he’s not the first House member to be named as such; there’s also the infamous Joe Barton.

  12. has so far gotten 616 votes in the House primary, for 1%.  And slightly over 3,000 votes in the Governor primary, for 0%.

    He just doesn’t have the Mumpower this go around, methinks.

  13. Herron looks bad garnering only 68.2 against a “no name” who did absolutely no campaigning. On the other hand, he did absolutely no campaigning either.

    It appears folks are expressing some severe dislike of Herron to pick to pick the other name on the ballot, as he fairly high name ID. My wife would like to have voted against Herron, but voted for him, so apparently her sentiment is fairly prevalent and people are acting on it.  

  14. I like Brett Carter’s chances to hold on on the Dem side unless one of the others has enormous strength in Trousdale, which has not reported at all.

    Cannot make a call on the GOP side.  Black has a lot of votes left to win in Sumner, and Zelenik has some to win in Overton.  Again Trousdale has not reported.  Going to be about the closest three-way race imaginable.

  15. Gov- Well I was hoping for Wamp to win tonight because I honestly thought we stood a chance with him. Alas it is probably for the best as he would still be favored to win and I do not want a nut like him in higher office. I am not sure if I would classify Haslam as moderate per say but by Tennessee standards he probably is. I thought him being a former member of Mayors against illegal guns would hurt him but I guess not. This races is probably between lean and likely R. It was nice while we had it anyway.

    TN-09- Does this surprise anyone? I hope this finally puts an end to Republicans accusing everyone of color they hate of being reverse racist. That just pisses me the hell off. This proves that no one buys into what the conservatives think many black pols or blacks in general think. Thanks TN-09 you did the right thing.  

  16. His son was supposedly running for the state house in district 29, but the AP doesn’t even have that race listed at all in the GOP primary.  Did he never qualify for the ballot?

  17. extremely close primary races in one state as yesterday in Tennessee. At least – in 2010. And it’s far from being a biggest state in nation. Are any recounts possible?

Comments are closed.