There are eight Republican primaries for the Tennessee State Senate on Aug. 1, 2024. An incumbent is running in seven 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 two Senate incumbents.

Ballotpedia identified the Republican primaries in Districts 2, 4, 6, and 18 as battlegrounds. Three primaries feature an incumbent and a single challenger. The fourth is for an open seat. All three races featuring incumbents have spending reported from at least four of the seven PACs Ballotpedia identified as having a history of recent advocacy for school vouchers in Tennessee. The fourth battleground features an incumbent member of the House who opposed Lee’s vouchers proposal.

The 2024 legislative elections have eight contested Republican primaries compared to four in both 2022 and 2020. Seven of those primaries have an incumbent on the ballot compared to three in both 2022 and 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.