TENNESSEE'S 5TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

The '5th Congressional District of Tennessee' is a congressional district in Middle Tennessee. The most regularly drawn of the state's nine districts, it currently includes almost all of Davidson County, half of Wilson County, and half of Cheatham County. Nearly two-thirds of the district's voting population lives in the state capital, Nashville.
Tennessee has had at least five congressional districts since 1827. The district's current configuration dates from 1953, when Tennessee lost a seat in redistricting. The Tennessee General Assembly shifted most of the territory of the former 6th District to neighboring districts, creating a 5th District located entirely in Davidson County. While other areas around Nashville have been added in subsequent years, the 5th has been drawn as a Nashville-based district ever since.
The 5th is a very safe seat for the Democratic Party, due almost entirely to the influence of heavily Democratic Nashville. Some pockets of Republican influence exist in some wealthier Nashville neighborhoods (e.g., Belle Meade, Green Hills), and portions of neighboring Cheatham and Wilson counties undergoing rapid suburbanization. However, they are no match for the overwhelming Democratic trend in most of Nashville. While Republicans made several strong bids for the district in the late 1960s and early 1970s (largely over racial issues such as a 1971 busing order), they have only put up token candidates since 1972. At the federal level, the district has supported the Democrats' presidential candidate in every election except two--in 1968 (when it supported George Wallace) and 1972 (when it supported Richard Nixon). Even Walter Mondale, who badly trailed Ronald Reagan in 1984 throughout Tennessee, won Davidson County by a healthy margin.
Demographics are a major factor behind the Democrats' near-absolute dominance of the political scene. Many conservative white voters (including Nashville natives) have increasingly moved out of Metro Nashville/Davidson County to more "family-friendly" Republican suburban counties such as Williamson and Sumner. They have been replaced largely by liberal-oriented constituencies such as students (and alumni) of the Nashville area's several colleges and universities, music industry professionals (especially in the growing non-country genres), and white-collar professionals, in a manner similar to that of cities such as Atlanta, Raleigh/Durham, and Austin. In the entire state, only Memphis has anything like a sizable constituency of progressive-minded whites that Nashville has. The clout of Nashville's African-American electorate, a traditionally Democratic constituency, has grown steadily in recent years as well.
Generally, the 5th is one of three seats in Tennessee that are usually not seriously contested by Republicans (the others being the 8th and 9th districts).
Democrat Jim Cooper, a former representative from the 4th District in southern middle Tennessee, has represented the 5th since 2003.

Contents

Representatives

Recent election results

History of district boundaries

External links

Representatives

Name	Took Office	Left Office	Party	District Residence
Robert Desha	1827	1831	Jacksonian Democrat	Gallatin
William Hall	1831	1833	Jacksonian Democrat	Sumner County
John B. Forester	1833	1837	Jacksonian Democrat	''unknown''
Abram P. Maury	1837	1839	Whig	Williamson County
Hopkins L. Turney	1839	1843	Democrat	Winchester
George Washington Jones	1843	1853	Democrat	Fayetteville
Charles Ready	1853	1859	Whig, American	Murfreesboro
Robert H. Hatton	1859	1861	Opposition	Lebanon
''American Civil War''
William B. Campbell	1866	1867	Unionist	Wilson County
John Trimble	1867	1869	Republican	Nashville
William F. Prosser	1869	1871	Republican	Nashville
Edward I. Golladay	1871	1873	Democrat	Lebanon
Horace Harrison	1873	1875	Republican	Nashville
John M. Bright	1875	1881	Democrat	Fayetteville
Richard Warner	1881	1885	Democrat	Lewisburg
James D. Richardson	1885	1905	Democrat	Murfreesboro
William C. Houston	1905	1919	Democrat	Woodbury
Ewin L. Davis	1919	1933	Democrat	Tullahoma
Jo Byrns	1933	1936 ★	Democrat	Nashville
Richard M. Atkinson	1937	1939	Democrat	Nashville
Jo Byrns, Jr.	1939	1941	Democrat	Nashville
Percy Priest	1941	1943	Democrat	Nashville
Jim Nance McCord	1943	1945	Democrat	Lewisburg
Harold Earthman	1945	1947	Democrat	Murfreesboro
Joe L. Evins	1947	1953	Democrat	Smithville
Percy Priest	1953	1956 ★	Democrat	Nashville
J. Carlton Loser	1957	1963	Democrat	Nashville
Richard Fulton	1963	1975	Democrat	Nashville
Clifford Allen	1975 ★ ★	1978 ★	Democrat	Nashville
Bill Boner	1979	1988	Democrat	Nashville
Bob Clement	1988 ★ ★	2003	Democrat	Nashville
Jim Cooper	2003	''present''	Democrat	Nashville

★ Died in office


★
★ Assumed office by special election
Source: Political Graveyard database of Tennessee congressmen

Recent election results

Source: November 7, 2006 General Election Official Returns (Accessed 2006-12-11)
Source: Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 2, 2004

History of district boundaries

Below are the counties included in Tennessee District 5 from 1921 to 2000:

★ 1921-1930: Bedford, Cannon, Coffee, DeKalb, Lincoln, Marshall, Moore, Rutherford

★ 1931-1940: Davidson, Macon, Montgomery, Robertson, Stewart, Sumner, Trousdale

★ 1941-1950: Bedford, Cannon, Coffee, DeKalb, Franklin, Giles, Lincoln, Marshall, Moore, Rutherford, Wilson

★ 1951-1970: Davidson

★ 1971-1980: Cheatham, Davidson, Robertson

★ 1981-1990: Davidson and Robertson

★ 1991-2000: Davidson and most of Robertson
Source: Tennessee Blue Books

External links

Tennessee Congressional districts