Since the turn of the 21st century, Stewart County's voters have increasingly supported Republican candidates in recent presidential elections. In the 2008 presidential election, John McCain received approximately 53.7% of the vote; he was the first Republican to carry the county. For 100 years before that, Stewart County was the sole county in Tennessee that had never voted in majority for a Republican presidential candidate. In 2016, Republican Donald Trump gained a proportion of votes here that was only marginally less than that of the GOP gained in the historically Unionist counties of East Tennessee and the Highland Rim.