The seventh district has significant suburban and rural areas. Although most of the area is rural, more than half of the district lives in either Montgomery County or Williamson County. By most measures, Williamson County is the wealthiest county in the state and is usually ranked near the top nationally. The district has a very strong military presence, as it includes Tennessee's share of Fort Campbell. Politically speaking, the area was secessionist and part of the “Solid South” for a century after the Civil War, excluding the UnionistHighland Rim bloc of Henderson, McNairy, Hardin and Wayne Counties. However, since being carried by George Wallace in 1968 it has become and remained one of the most Republican areas in Tennessee, and has not been represented by a Democrat since the early 1970s. The rural secessionist counties did return to the Democrats until the 2000s – four of the five Tennessee counties won by George McGovern lie within this district – but since the middle 2000s these counties have turned overwhelmingly Republican in all elections. The only area where Democrats currently compete on anything resembling an even basis is in Clarksville, which has consistently elected Democrats to the state legislature. According to the 2010 census the five largest cities entirely within the district are: Clarksville, Franklin, Brentwood, Lawrenceburg, and Pulaski.
The district's basic current configuration dates from 1973, when Tennessee lost a congressional district. Although it was numbered "6th" in the 1970s, it was at this time that a district was formed by combining Clarksville and Williamson County with the eastern suburbs of Memphis and the rural areas in between. Republican Robin Beard represented this area from 1973 to 1983. Tennessee gained a congressional district following the 1980 census. At this time, the district was re-numbered as "7th" and lost its eastern counties to the 4th and new 6th. Following this re-districting, Beard made an unsuccessful U.S. Senate bid, and was replaced by former Shelby County Republican Party chair Don Sundquist. Sundquist served through the rest of the 1980s through the 1990 re-districting, which saw the district lose some of its rural counties in favor of Maury County. In 1994, Sundquist successfully ran for Governor of Tennessee, defeating future governor Phil Bredesen. Sundquist was then replaced by Ed Bryant. Bryant served from 1995 until 2002, when the district was gerrymandered by the Democrat-led Tennessee General Assembly to pack the consistently-Republican suburbs of Nashville and Memphis into one district. The result was a district that was long, but only wide at some points in the Middle Tennessee portion. Following that re-districting, the area chose Brentwood-based state senatorMarsha Blackburn. She served from 2003 to 2019. Redistricting after the 2010 census made the district somewhat more compact, restoring a configuration similar to the 1983-2003 lines. In 2018, Blackburn successfully ran for US Senate, defeating former governor Phil Bredesen. In the concurrent election, the district selected doctor and former state senator Mark E. Green.
