There are 19 Republican primaries for the Tennessee House of Representatives on Aug. 1, 2024. An incumbent is running in 13 of those primaries.

The 2024 elections are taking place in the context of a conflict among House Republicans over a proposal to expand Tennessee’s school voucher program. In the 2024 legislative session, Gov. Bill Lee (R) supported a proposal allowing all Tennessee families with school-age children access to vouchers to be applied towards the cost of private school.

The bill did not advance to a final vote before the end of the session owing to differences between the House and Senate drafts in what Chalkbeat described as “one of the biggest defeats of [Lee’s] administration, now in its second term.” According to the Tennessee Lookout, with the legislature out of session until 2025, the primaries “are the next frontier in the debate over whether state lawmakers should adopt a universal plan to provide parents with $7,200 in cash to subsidize private school tuition.” As of May 31, 2024, Lee had endorsed one House Republican—John Ragan (R)—for re-election.

Ballotpedia identified the Republican primaries in Districts 13, 24, and 73 as battlegrounds. All three primaries feature an incumbent and a single challenger. All three have spending reported from at least two of the seven PACs Ballotpedia identified as having a history of recent advocacy for school vouchers in Tennessee. One battleground district—District 24—has a challenger who opposes Lee’s vouchers proposal.

The 2024 legislative elections have 19 contested Republican primaries compared to 20 in 2022 and 19 in 2020. Thirteen of those primaries have an incumbent on the ballot compared to seven in 2022 and 14 in 2020.

Tennessee is one of 23 states with a Republican trifecta. A state government trifecta is a term used to describe a single-party government where one political party holds the governor’s office and a majority in both chambers of the state legislature.