Welcome back to another edition of LIVE RESULTS! I know what you’re thinking: “You’re crazy, Chris. It’s not Tuesday.”
But I’m not crazy — at least not about this. Tennessee is holding its primaries on a Thursday. Back in 2024, I explained the strange phenomenon of Tennessee’s Thursday primaries:
Here's a little history lesson for you. Tennessee embedded late-week primaries into the state constitution in 1796, and Politico reported in 2014 that historians don't know why. Somehow, the tradition has held through the present day, so here we are reporting on primaries in the Volunteer State on a Thursday. Tennessee and Hawaii are the only states that don't hold all of their primaries on Tuesday, according to Politico. (Some states hold runoffs on other days, but they keep their primaries on Tuesday.)
I asked Grok for more information:
Researchers, including Tennessee State Librarian and Archivist Charles Sherrill, have examined the constitutional convention journals and found no explicit explanation for choosing Thursday. It is simply treated as entrenched tradition. Tennessee is unique among the states in using Thursday for these primaries (most states use Tuesday; a few others use Wednesday or Saturday for certain elections). Presidential primaries, by contrast, fall on Super Tuesday.
And more:
Speculative theories often point to the state’s agrarian roots in the late 18th/early 19th century—similar to the national preference for Tuesday voting (to avoid Sunday travel for farmers heading to market). One local election official has suggested farmers might have come into town for mid-week sales and stayed to vote the next day. Modern practical notes sometimes mentioned include giving voters who cast provisional ballots (e.g., due to ID issues) until the following Monday to resolve them.
In short, it is a historical quirk preserved through multiple constitutions rather than a deliberate modern policy choice.
This is the Volunteer State’s first election since the state legislature redistricted mid-decade. Naturally, the goal is to maximize the number of Republicans representing Tennessee in Congress.
One of the Democrats whom redistricting knocked out of office is Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.). His district got split among three GOP-strong districts; in the race for the 9th District, mouthy, showboating State Rep. Justin Pearson (D-86th District) hopes to keep the seat in blue hands. Other races to watch include the 5th and 6th Districts, where Republicans are vying for the chance to serve in the next Congress. In most districts, Republican representatives are running unopposed.
In the Senate race, Sen. Bill Haggerty (R-Tenn.) is unopposed on the Republican side. Several Democrats are in the race to face him in November.
The primaries for governor feature a slew of Democrats running to replace Gov. Bill Lee (R-Tenn.), who is out of office on term limits after this year. On the Republican side, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.), and State Rep. Monty Fritts (R-32nd District) are all running on solidly conservative platforms. President Donald Trump has yet to endorse, although he has expressed his support for both Blackburn and Rose.
Tennessee straddles two time zones, so polls close at 7 p.m. regardless of time zone. The middle and western sections of the state are in Central Time, while the eastern third of the state is Eastern. Check out the latest results below, courtesy of our friends at Decision Desk HQ.
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