NASHVILLE — Lackluster turnout at the polls marked Tennessee’s primary Thursday, as voters narrowed their pick for the Democratic challenger to Republican U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander this fall.

Former state Democratic Party Chairman Bob Tuke led in early primary returns for the Democratic nomination, while other heated congressional and state races remained close.

But weather may have played a part in a shallow showing by voters, with parts of western and central Tennessee seeing rain Thursday afternoon.

State Election Coordinator Brook Thompson predicted about 550,000 to 600,000 of Tennessee’s 3.4 million voters would participate.

“That’s what happens in August primaries of presidential years,” he said. “There is just not a lot on the ballot to get people motivated.”

Looking around an empty walkway outside a Nashville polling station, Jimmy Davy, 75, the retired sports editor of The Tennessean newspaper, observed, “You can tell by the turnout how much interest there is.”

There were some heated battles. Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen of Memphis and Republican Rep. David Davis of Johnson City were trying to avoid being sent home after only two years in Congress.

Early voting returns show congressman Davis and challenger Phil Roe running close in the Republican primary for Tennessee’s 1st District seat.

Tuke and former Knox County Clerk Mike Padgett campaigned most actively for the Democratic Senate nomination — though no Democrat has come close to Alexander’s formidable fundraising totals.

Also Thursday, voters cast ballots in several contested state legislative primaries, judicial retention votes and local government elections.

Early voting results showed state Sen. Rosalind Kurita running about even with her challenger in the Democratic primary. Clarksville attorney Tim Barnes is opposing the 12-year incumbent for the District 22 seat. Barnes hopes to capitalize on the fallout from Kurita crossing party lines, including a vote that turned the Senate speakership over to a Republican.

Johnson City Mayor Phil Roe is challenging Davis, a former legislator, in the solidly Republican 1st District in northeast Tennessee. The district hasn’t sent a Democrat to Washington since 1881.

Roe, a fourth-place finisher, was leading narrowly with about half of the precincts reporting.

Norman Litchfield, 24, a medical student from Johnson City, said he voted for Roe because he thinks “change is good.”

“I’ve been to D.C. several times with my sister for school. (Davis) kind of gave us a cold shoulder,” he said. “I think your representative should take the time of day to come out and shake your hand. I like Roe’s ’people not politics’ platform.”

Meanwhile in Memphis, Cohen was trying to fend off attorney Nikki Tinker, a runner-up in the crowded 2006 primary that led to Cohen becoming the first white person to represent the 9th District in more than three decades.

The race turned negative in the final days of the campaign, with Tinker, who is black, linking Cohen to images of the Ku Klux Klan in a TV ad.

The ad criticizes Cohen for a vote against renaming a downtown Memphis park that is now named after Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who helped form the original KKK after the Civil War.

Cohen, a former state senator with a long record as a civil rights supporter, led an effort last month for the U.S. House to issue an unprecedented apology to black Americans for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws.

Comments