Editing Houston County, Tennessee (section)

===Politics===
Houston County was historically one of the state's most [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] counties, however, like other [[Social conservatism in the United States|socially conservative]] rural counties, it has trended hard right in recent years. Formerly a part of [[Tennessee's 8th congressional district]], which was represented by [[Blue Dog Coalition|Blue Dog Democrat]] [[John Tanner (Tennessee politician)|John Tanner]], Houston County is now part of [[Tennessee's 7th congressional district]] and is represented by Republican [[Mark Green (Tennessee politician)|Mark Green]].

The county was formerly among the most consistently Democratic in the state on presidential elections. Democratic candidates failed to carry Houston County at the presidential level only twice prior to 2012. In 1928, [[Herbert Hoover]] became the first [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] presidential candidate to ever carry Houston County, due to anti-Catholic voting against [[Al Smith]] in this "Bible Belt" region.<ref>Phillips, Kevin P.; ''The Emerging Republican Majority'', p. 212 {{ISBN|1400852293}}</ref> The second non-Democrat to carry Houston County was [[George Wallace]] of the [[American Independent Party]] during the [[1968 United States presidential election|1968 presidential election]], following which Houston County became one of only six Wallace counties to vote for [[George McGovern]] against [[Richard Nixon]]'s 3,000-plus-county landslide of 1972.{{efn|The others were the fellow secessionist white-majority Middle Tennessee counties of [[Perry County, Tennessee|Perry]] and [[Stewart County, Tennessee|Stewart]], plus the three Alabama Black Belt counties of [[Bullock County, Alabama|Bullock]], [[Lowndes County, Alabama|Lowndes]] and [[Wilcox County, Alabama|Wilcox]] where Negro voter registration was severely delayed after [[Voting Rights Act of 1965|the Voting Rights Act]].}}

In the [[2008 United States presidential election|2008 presidential election]], when most other traditionally Democratic counties in the state voted for [[John McCain]], Houston County supported [[Barack Obama]]. However, the county's vote has been shifting Republican as reflected by [[Barack Obama]]'s winning margin of barely more than 2%, the lowest margin among all Democratic presidential candidates who have carried Houston County since its creation.<ref>[http://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/comparemaps.php?year=2008&fips=47&f=1&off=0&elect=0 David Leip’s Presidential Election Atlas (Election maps for Tennessee)]</ref> In the [[2012 United States presidential election|2012 presidential election]], [[Mitt Romney]] became the first Republican in 80 years to win the county.<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/state/TN/president CNN results for Tennessee]</ref> Republican Senator [[Bob Corker]]<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/state/TN/senate CNN Results for Senate]</ref> and Republican Representative [[Marsha Blackburn]] also won the county.<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/state/TN/house/07 CNN results for Tennessee's 7th district]</ref>

In 2016, the county swung hard to the right, with Republican [[Donald Trump]] winning it by more than 40 percentage points, a massive shift from Romney's margin of less than 6 points. As such, the county has become substantially more Republican than the state as a whole, voting similarly to the rock-ribbed Republican counties of [[East Tennessee]].