Tennessee's 4th Congressional District - History

History

From 1983 to 2013 it was the state's largest district in terms of area, and one of the largest east of the Mississippi River, because of low population density and rural character. It included all of Bledsoe, Campbell, Coffee, Cumberland, Fentress, Franklin, Giles, Grundy, Lawrence, Lewis, Lincoln, Marion, Maury, Moore, Morgan, Pickett, Scott, Sequatchie, Van Buren, Warren, and White Counties, as well as portions of Hickman, Roane, and Williamson counties.

The 4th stretched across portions of traditionally heavily Republican East Tennessee and traditionally Democratic Middle Tennessee. The district's eastern counties were strongly Republican, except for pockets in the northeast where union membership among coal miners keeps Democrats competitive. In fact, prior to the 4th's creation, much of the district's eastern portion had not been represented by a Democrat since the Civil War. The district's western counties, however, were historically Democratic, in keeping with the preferences associated with Middle Tennessee's history.

The 4th stretched across two time zones, four of the state's eight television markets (Knoxville, Chattanooga, Nashville and Huntsville, Alabama) and five of the state's nine radio markets (the above-mentioned cities, plus Cookeville). This gave congressional races much of the feel of statewide races; candidates' advertising budgets sometimes rival those for governor and U.S. Senate (although candidates usually conduct a significant part of their advertising in far less expensive media such as small-town newspapers, local radio and cable television). Open-seat races in this district were usually among the most-watched in the country. However, the district's large size and lack of unifying influences made it very difficult to unseat an incumbent. Consequently, the district's congressman was usually reckoned as a statewide figure, with a good chance for winning state office in the future. The New Deal heritage of the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the subsequent priority of ensuring continued funding for it and other public works projects, generally inclined voters toward keeping incumbents in office as well.

The communities in the 4th were largely dependent upon light industry economically, although significant farming interests were still visible; however, most of the coal mines have long since been abandoned, with those areas suffered from the state's highest poverty and unemployment rates. The district's population was largely aging (although its families generally had more children than the national average), with relatively few new residents moving to the area.

The absence of social change brought on by large-scale suburbanization in most of the territory (except for Williamson County and portions of Maury County) left the district's political elites—Democrats in the western portion, Republicans in the eastern portion—generally unchallenged. However, even moderately liberal politics were a hard sell even in the district's strongly Democratic areas. Most of the 4th's residents were strongly conservative on social issues, and very religious (predominantly members of Baptist and Pentecostal churches and Churches of Christ); Republican presidential candidates carried the district in all but two elections since the district was created. The two exceptions were 1992 and 1996, in which the district warmly supported Bill Clinton. This was largely due to the presence of Al Gore (who represented a large portion of the district's western section from 1977 to 1983) as the Democratic candidate for vice president. Gore just barely missed carrying the district in 2000, which may have cost him his home state—and the election.

Factors such as patriotism (the district, like rural areas generally, sent a higher percentage of its youth into the military than the U.S. at large), gun control initiatives, issues of religion in public life, and tobacco policies (long a vital cash crop in many counties) have done much to shift voter allegiances away from time-honored patterns set in the days following the Civil War in the historically Democratic counties. Much like neighbors in nearby Alabama or Kentucky, the death of older residents with memories of the Great Depression and the Solid South left in its stead a decidedly more conservative constituency in the 4th, perhaps most notably on economic issues (tax cuts occupy more attention than farm subsidies, for example).