The Ballot and the Bible: an Examination of the Role that Faith Played in the 2018 Tennessee Gubernatorial Election

This paper analyses the circumstances that allowed for faith to play such an outsized role in the 2018 Tennessee gubernatorial election compared to others in the past, investigates the ongoing relationship between faith and politics in Tennessee, and considers whether or not the inclusion faith in our politics is healthy for government and healthy for politics. It finds that the decline of centrism and the inclusion of issues of sex and the family in Tennessee politics has created a political atmosphere in which faith has become a winning cause, and that although faith has been shown to increase democratic participation among some political coalitions, it may also deepen partisan divisions