DesJarlais Won 9 Counties. Nashville’s New Slice Alone Beat Him by 25,831.

Scott DesJarlais won most of Tennessee’s 4th District on a map. He still lost the seat by 280 votes.

In the Tennessee Secretary of State’s final unofficial count — all 11 counties completed — Democrat Victoria Broderick leads 95,585 to 95,305, or 48.87% to 48.73%. Independents Jacob Anders and Clay Faircloth took the rest. Broderick claimed victory Tuesday. A DesJarlais spokesperson offered no comment Wednesday when asked about a concession.

DesJarlais has held the seat since 2011. In 2024 he beat the same opponent, Broderick, 219,133 to 83,832 — 69.95% to 26.76%, a 43-point blowout per the House Clerk’s certified totals.

Nine counties weren’t enough

The Secretary of State’s county breakdown shows why the rural counties didn’t save him. DesJarlais carried nine of the district’s 11 counties, including Coffee by 5,580 votes, Franklin by 4,661, Marion by 3,309, and Warren by 3,240.

Broderick’s dump came from the two biggest pieces of the map. She led Davidson County 37,356 to 11,525 — a 25,831-vote margin, more than ninety times the size of her districtwide lead. Rutherford, home to Murfreesboro, went her way by just 360 votes, 40,527 to 40,167.

Two suburbs. That’s the whole race.

The May map

In May, Tennessee Republicans redrew the state’s U.S. House map after the Supreme Court narrowed Voting Rights Act map rules. The 4th still runs across the southern Cumberland Plateau and Murfreesboro. It also picked up the southeastern corner of Davidson County — a Nashville slice the old 4th never had, per the Nashville Banner’s district rewrite.

The Banner, citing a Tennessee Lookout analysis of the new lines, said Trump would have carried the redrawn 4th by about 24 points in 2024, down from nearly 44 on the old map. It was still rated a solid Republican seat. Broderick raised under $100,000. DesJarlais raised more than $600,000.

She won two counties. He won nine. The Nashville slice decided it by 280 votes.

Broderick becomes the only Democrat in Tennessee’s House delegation. Provisional and other late ballots are still subject to the state’s canvass. A 280-vote gap is small enough to watch — and large enough that DesJarlais’s nine-county map still wasn’t enough.

What to watch: county canvass, whether DesJarlais concedes, and how many cured or late ballots move a 280-vote race.