TN-SEN: Return of the Bredi

[Gustaf]

I want to see a Bredesen vs. Blackburn poll before I move it from safe R to likely or leans. I think some people might be discounting Bredesen too soon--after all, Democrats hold two Senate seats right now in states to the right of Tennessee. Not expecting him to win of course; just not ceding the possibility he'd start out well ahead of Blackburn.

He left office with a 72% approval rating. Some people have brought up Linda Lingle or Ted Strickland. They both left office unpopular.

Yeah, the Strickland comparison is really weird. Strickland lost his reelection bid while Bredesen in his last election literally won every single county. Not that it would guarantee him a win or anything but he seems like a stronger candidate than Strickland.

[Gustaf]

I don't think it's that strange tbh. There haven't been great opportunities to run before since you had fairly moderate strong incumbents in place. In addition, if he didn't want to run in 2008, neither 2012 nor 2014 would have seemed like very good years to run as a Democrat in Tennessee.

Now you have an open seat, unpopular GOP president, wingnut GOP candidate.