The 3rd congressional district of Tennessee is a congressional district in East Tennessee. It has been represented by Republican Chuck Fleischmann since January 2011. Current boundaries The district comprises two halves, joined through a narrow tendril in Roane County near Ten Mile. The upper half encompasses all of Roane, Anderson, and Morgan counties, along with most of Scott, and half of Campbell County. The lower half borders North Carolina to the east and Georgia to the south. It is composed of Hamilton, Polk, McMinn, Monroe, and Bradley County. Characteristics The third district has been centered on Chattanooga since before the Civil War. In terms of density, the district is sparsely populated, as much of it is located within the Appalachian Mountains. Almost half of the district's population lives in Hamilton County. Election results from presidential races Results Under Old Lines (2013-2023) History The 3rd district is on the dividing line between counties and towns that favored or opposed Southern secession in the Civil War. George Washington Bridges was elected as a Unionist (the name used by a coalition of Republicans, northern Democrats and anti-Confederate Southern Democrats) to the Thirty-seventh Congress, but he was arrested by Confederate troops while en route to Washington, D.C. and taken back to Tennessee. Bridges was held prisoner for more than a year before he escaped and went to Washington, D.C., and assumed his duties on February 23, 1863; serving until March 3, 1863. During much of the 20th century, southeastern Tennessee was the only portion of traditionally heavily Republican East Tennessee where Democrats were able to compete on a more-or-less even basis. The Chattanooga papers—the moderate-to-progressive Times and the archconservative Free Press (now consolidated into the Chattanooga Times Free Press)--printed diametrically opposed political editorials. The northern counties have predominantly voted Republican since the 1860s, in a manner similar to their neighbors in the present 1st and 2nd districts. However, Democrats have received some support in coal mining areas (dating from the Great Depression). Also, in the years since World War II, the government-founded city of Oak Ridge, with its active labor unions and a population largely derived from outside the region, has been a source of potential Democratic votes. This balance showed signs of changing beginning in the late 1950s, when rural and working-class whites began splitting their tickets in national elections to support Dwight Eisenhower and Barry Goldwater. In later years, the district warmly