[2] Contrariwise, the rest of Middle and West Tennessee who had supported and driven the state's secession was equally fiercely Democratic as it associated the Republicans with Reconstruction.

The 1920 election saw a significant but not radical change, whereby by moving into a small number of traditionally Democratic areas in Middle Tennessee[6] and expanding turnout due to the Nineteenth Amendment and powerful isolationist sentiment,[7] the Republican Party was able to capture Tennessee's presidential electoral votes and win the governorship and take three congressional seats in addition to the rock-ribbed GOP First and Second Districts.

[10] However, in May, Tennessee went to Smith's rival William Gibbs McAdoo, who represented the rural, southern, historically secessionist and prohibitionist wing of the party.

[11] Ultimately neither Smith nor McAdoo could prove acceptable to all Democratic delegates and the nomination went to a compromise candidate in Wall Street lawyer John W. Davis of West Virginia.

[17] At the beginning of November, a drift to Coolidge was predicted by the New York Times, though Davis was still expected to carry the state by fewer than twenty thousand votes.