Sean Onamade
The U.S. flag flying at Alumni Lawn as captured on Nov. 7, 2022. (Hustler Multimedia/Sean Onamade)
Vanderbilt students and community members joined the nation in voting in U.S. midterm congressional and gubernatorial elections held on Nov. 8. In Tennessee, Republicans swept eight out of the nine districts, with Nashville being represented by a Republican for the first time since 1875. Overall, Democrats retained control of the U.S. Senate while the majority in the U.S. House is yet to be decided.
Tennessee elections
In Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District, Andy Ogles (R) defeated Heidi Campbell (D). During redistricting following the 2020 Census, the state legislature significantly changed the district’s lines to favor Republicans, which led longtime Representative Jim Cooper (D) to retire from Congress. As of print, this is a flipped seat for Republicans in the House.
U.S. Representative Mark Green (R) won re-election against Odessa Kelly (D) in the 7th Congressional District, where Vanderbilt’s campus and large parts of Nashville now lie. Green and Kelly visited Vanderbilt over the course of the election to make their case to students.
Prior to this election, Nashville had not been represented by a Republican in Congress since 1875. Vanderbilt College Democrats President and junior Claire Reber cited gerrymandering as the reason for this shift.
“The gerrymandering of Nashville into three districts proved detrimental to some of the best Democrat candidates I have had the pleasure of meeting,” Reber said. “Effective redistricting reform is desperately needed to uphold voting rights in this country.”
Additionally, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R) won re-election, receiving nearly double the votes of his Democratic challenger Jason Brantley Martin. !function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(e){if(void 0!==e.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var t=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var a in e.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r