BLOG

Today, we released our latest installment of the Beacon Poll, a statewide survey of 1,200 registered Tennessee voters comprised of questions about the 2024 election results, policy issues, and more.

In a nailbiter, the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) took home the infamous Pork of the Year award, with 35% of Tennesseans believing this was the most outrageous form of pork spending. MATA approved spending on items such as a suite at Grizzlies games, luxury furniture, and a swanky downtown office while running a $60 million deficit. This complete disregard for taxpayers’ interests led to the entire board being replaced and forcing proposed closures to bus and trolley lines in the city.

MATA narrowly won this award, with another 34% of Tennesseans voting for the additional tax dollars doled out to improve the soon-to-be-destroyed Nissan Stadium. This comes in addition to the $2.3 billion that local and state taxpayers are already being forced to pay for a brand-new Titans stadium. The city of Lebanon had a strong third place showing (24%) for approving a $1.5 million taxpayer-funded incentive package for an unnamed restaurant, a process that lacked both transparency and common sense.

As the 2025 legislative session quickly approaches, education is the most contentious issue on the docket. However, voters are relatively uniform in their views. A whopping 67% of Tennesseans support Governor Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship plan, while just 13% oppose it. Support of Governor Lee’s statewide choice program is consistent across party lines but is most popular among Republicans, where 73% support the program and 5% oppose it. It is also well above water with Democrats (+25%), and Independents (+57%). Additionally, only 40% of Tennesseans are satisfied with the K-12 public education system in the state, while 54% are dissatisfied.

Tennesseans have interesting opinions on why they think Trump won and Harris lost. When asked to choose the reasons Trump won, Tennessee voters said the biggest factors were his focus on economic issues like inflation and jobs (56%), immigration policies (53%), and discontent with the previous administration’s performance (51%). When asked why Harris lost the election, the top reasons given were that she was too closely associated with the Biden administration (58%) and the perception that she was not qualified for the presidency (52%).

There have been recent media reports that Joe Biden believes he would have beaten Donald Trump if he would have stayed in the race, but Tennesseans disagree. Most Tennesseans believe Kamala Harris performed as well (37%) or better (34%) against Trump than Biden would have had he stayed in the race. Only 16% of Tennesseans believe Biden would have fared better than Harris.

.     

There has been a lot of media attention surrounding the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. While Tennesseans are strongly in favor of the formation of the new department (+34%), many voters are unsure if it will work in practice. When asked if they believe that Musk and Ramaswamy can effectively improve government efficiency, only 36% of voters believe their business background will help, while 23% of voters believe that the government is too different from business. Thirty-three percent said they could potentially improve government efficiency, but it depends on how they approach it.

Another issue likely to come up in this year’s legislative is a statewide property tax cap. Nearly all Tennesseans (81%) believe there should be a limit on how much property taxes can go up yearly, with voter approval needed for any increase beyond that limit. Most voters (51%) support implementing an outright cap on property tax increases, while 20% of Tennesseans support a combination of statewide regulation and local decision-making on property tax increases. Only 17% of Tennessee voters support the status quo of allowing local officials (mayors and city councils/county commissions) to decide on property tax increases without state-imposed limitations.

Since winter has officially begun and temperatures have started to drop, we asked Tennesseans how they felt about Tennessee winters. In a surprising upset, most Tennesseans (51%) would describe Tennessee winter temperatures as just right, while 37% describe it as too cold and just 10% describe it as not cold enough. Another controversial topic in the winter is snowfall. When given the choice, a slight majority of Tennesseans (55%) would prefer no snow in the winter as opposed to lots of snow (45%).

Please link any online stories to BeaconPoll.com.
You can read the full poll with party crosstabs here.
You can read the full poll with demographic and regional crosstabs here.