1968: Why did Wallace do so well in Tennessee?

[TDAS04]

Tennessee was George Wallace's best state that he did not win.  He came within 4 points of winning, and clearly would have carried the state if it weren't for East Tennessee.

It's a little surprising considering that Tennessee was historically more racially moderate than much of the South, and I didn't expect Wallace to carry Nashville.

[Skill and Chance]

This really is surprising.  Especially Nashville.  The incumbent mayor of Nashville was pro-integration as early as 1960.  Also, my understanding is that the Crump machine in Memphis promoted black voting well prior to 1965.  Memphis is big enough that I would expect black registration in Tennessee to have outpaced the rest of the South in 1968.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

TN, NC, NW SC and NE GA had a strong correlation among counties between the vote for LBJ in 64 and vote for Wallace in 68. This in contrast to areas of the Deep South (LA, MS, South and Central AL, South GA/North FL) and South VA that tended to correlate between Goldwater and Wallace.
TN had a significant contingent of Democrats that didn't have a problem voting for even such an outspoken civil rights supporter as Kefauver, but they were still Southern Democrats, culturally conservative, and with the tumult of the late 60s associated with the national Democratic party supported their fellow Southerner instead.

[bobloblaw]

East Tennessee was always the majority, Dixiecrat region of the state, going back to the Civil War. It wasn't going to vote for Nixon. Not surprising Wallace did really well there, as Humphrey was a Northern Democrat, and in the South that wasn't going to get him many votes against the Southern Democrat Wallace (officially ran as the American Party candidate, but everyone knew what he really was- a Democrat).

Basically, back then, especially in the South, people had really strong identifications, and it would take a really huge calamity to really pull them away. Hell, there were still a few McGovern counties in Tennessee, even though he was a "crazy" Northern Democrat who supported acid and abortions.

East TN was one of the strongest GOP regions in the south. Look at the map again. Nixon swept E TN

[ElectionsGuy]

Tennessee is pretty politically southern outside of eastern Tennessee, which has (in general) voted Republican since the Civil War.

[SingingAnalyst]

Low percentage of Blacks (around 16%). In SC for example Blacks were over 30% of population pulling Wallace's percentage way down. Poor Tennesseans, like poor West Virginians, probably saw little to draw them to Nixon.