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Tennessee, over the past few election cycles, has changed its political leanings and is not as consistently Republican and many of the other southern states. Tennessee has a Democrat as its governor, with two Republican senators. Out of the nine congressional seats Tennessee holds, four are Republicans and the remaining five are Democrats.

This election cycle, Tennessee can be seen as a "Strong McCain" state. Although it has not been in the lime light of presidential politics, regardless of its attempts to hold primaries on Super Tuesday to gain more attention, Tennessee has gotten some attention this cycle. With gossip of former Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) running for the presidency and then the short campaign of former Governor Fred Thompson (R-TN), Tennessee has made a newsworthy name for itself this election. Nonetheless, it will stick with its trend of the past two election cycles, and vote as a Republican state on November 4th.

Interestingly, Tennessee did vote in 1992 and 1996 elections as a Democratic state. This was seen by a few other southern states that are more traditionally Republican, due to former President Clinton's influence on the south. Al Gore, a native of Tennessee, was still unable to grab a Democratic endorsement from his home state when running in 2000 against President Bush.

In looking at financial support of Tennessee in Presidential elections, the National Journal states "the Nashville establishment traditionally supported Democrats in Tennessee politics, but now Nashville money has become heavily Republican: metro Nashville gave $9.3 million, mostly to Republicans, in the 2004 cycle, with $4.6 million coming from just three zip codes—37205, 37215 and 37027." As we all know, money is key to a successful presidential campaign, and with support like this from even such a consolidated area of Nashville will play a large role in influencing an election.