Editing Putnam County, Tennessee (section)

==Politics==
Putnam County is extremely [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]]-leaning for an [[urban area|urban]] county anchored by a college town ([[Cookeville, Tennessee|Cookeville]], the county seat, is home to [[Tennessee Technological University]]); formerly a reliable [[Solid South]] county, Putnam has voted Republican in nearly every presidential election since [[Richard Nixon]] narrowly did so in [[1968 United States presidential election in Tennessee|1968]], making exceptions for [[Jimmy Carter]] and [[Bill Clinton]] (both of whom are former governors of a neighboring state, namely and respectively [[Georgia, USA|Georgia]] and [[Arkansas]]). 

Though favorite son [[Al Gore]] was just over 2% short of carrying Putnam County in [[2000 United States presidential election in Tennessee|2000]], he would be the last Democratic presidential candidate to come within a single-digit margin of doing so or even win so much as 40% of the county vote. In [[2008 United States presidential election in Tennessee|2008]], [[John McCain]] won over 60% of the county's vote. In [[2020 United States presidential election in Tennessee|2020]], Republican [[Donald Trump]] easily swept Putnam with over 70% of the county vote, while Democrat [[Joe Biden]] racked up less than 28% of the vote. Even the University precinct itself voted for Republican presidential candidates in [[2012 United States presidential election in Tennessee|2012]], [[2016 United States presidential election in Tennessee|2016]], 2020 and [[2024 United States presidential election in Tennessee|2024]], although Phil Bredesen and Karl Dean did carry it handily in the 2018 [[2018 United States Senate election in Tennessee|federal Senate]] and [[2018 Tennessee gubernatorial election|gubernatorial]] elections.<ref>https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::c0ed8258-ce44-4eec-9736-2cc3b86a9d16</ref> Despite this, Putnam was one of only four Tennessee counties Biden lost to [[Bernie Sanders]] in the Democratic primary in 2020, indicating that the few Democrats left in Putnam County are unusually progressive.

Putnam County's elected officials in the [[Tennessee General Assembly|state legislature]] and at the local level tend to be extremely socially [[far-right]] even by Tennessean standards. In the 1990s, popular [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] former [[Tennessee Senate|state Senator]] [[Tommy Burks]] supported criminalizing [[abortion]] except to save the life of the mother and opposed teaching [[evolution]] in public schools.<ref>https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/coverstory/the-death-of-a-senator-tommy-burks-and-byron-low-tax-looper/article_7176c605-1c9b-53c6-a607-5422e4840953.html</ref> In the 2020s, Republican [[Tennessee House of Representatives|state Representative]] [[Ryan Williams (American politician)|Ryan Williams]] and Senator [[Paul Bailey (politician)|Paul Bailey]] sponsored a bill that would allow school districts in Tennessee to arm teachers with handguns even without informing parents of students,<ref>https://www.chalkbeat.org/tennessee/2024/04/03/school-teachers-could-carry-handguns-under-tennessee-legislature-bill/</ref> and local [[Sheriff]] Eddie Farris has expressed extremely [[anti-LGBT]] and [[xenophobic]] views, with him and his deputies gaining negative coverage for [[Sexual orientation#Perceptions|profiling]] the [[LGBT+ community]] and its allies right after they were harassed by overtly [[neo-Nazi]] protesters, [[Victim blaming|blaming]] the LGBT+ community for bringing "unwelcome guests" into Cookeville during the aforementioned incident<ref>https://wpln.org/post/neo-nazis-threatened-a-drag-show-at-a-cookeville-bar-now-the-bar-is-facing-eviction/</ref> and later inviting heightened suspicion against people "foreign" to Putnam County after two Greyhound buses from [[Texas]] were seen in Cookeville,<ref>https://fox17.com/news/local/tenn-sheriff-asks-public-to-report-suspicious-activity-from-those-foreign-to-area</ref><ref>https://tennesseestar.com/justice/tennessee-sheriff-asks-citizens-to-report-suspicious-activity-amid-ongoing-border-crisis-growing-homeless-population/tpappert/2024/09/20/</ref> with Farris's response to the latter incident prompting criticism from an [[immigrant]] rights group for fueling "suspicion, hate and fear."<ref>https://fox17.com/news/local/immigrant-rights-group-says-putnam-county-sheriff-misses-the-mark-with-crime-statement</ref>

{{PresHead|place=Putnam County, Tennessee|source=<ref>{{cite web|url=http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS|title=Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections|last=Leip|first=David|website=uselectionatlas.org|access-date=March 12, 2018}}</ref>}}
<!-- PresRow should be {{PresRow|Year|Winning party|GOP vote #|Dem vote #|3rd party vote #|State}} -->
{{PresRow|2024|Republican|25,554|8,991|552|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|2020|Republican|23,759|9,185|649|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|2016|Republican|19,002|6,851|1,359|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|2012|Republican|17,254|7,802|444|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|2008|Republican|17,101|9,739|476|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|2004|Republican|15,637|10,566|239|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|2000|Republican|11,248|10,785|405|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1996|Democratic|9,093|10,047|1,748|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1992|Democratic|7,998|10,858|2,626|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1988|Republican|9,547|6,606|132|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1984|Republican|8,999|7,443|99|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1980|Democratic|6,235|8,084|434|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1976|Democratic|4,079|8,485|144|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1972|Republican|6,038|3,738|223|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1968|Republican|3,693|3,541|3,073|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1964|Democratic|2,993|6,309|0|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1960|Democratic|4,240|4,443|32|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1956|Democratic|3,492|4,481|31|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1952|Democratic|3,183|4,096|0|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1948|Democratic|1,879|3,134|551|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1944|Democratic|1,770|2,788|0|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1940|Democratic|1,576|2,963|5|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1936|Democratic|1,207|2,619|6|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1932|Democratic|1,281|2,911|22|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1928|Democratic|1,612|2,145|0|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1924|Democratic|1,489|2,474|55|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1920|Democratic|2,132|2,996|0|Tennessee}}
{{PresRow|1916|Democratic|1,383|2,300|4|Tennessee}}
{{PresFoot|1912|Democratic|923|1,867|391|Tennessee}}