TN-SEN: Return of the Bredi

[Florida Man for Crime]

This is going to be a very close race. Gun to my head, Blackburn narrowly wins.

Blackburn should win pretty easily unless Dems keep their current highs on the GCB and probably improve on that even further. She is an even safer bet than Cruz.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Ooh, it will be good to get an update on TN post-primary.

My guess is Blackburn will have made up some ground now that the primary is over, but this will be partially offset by the currently very good national environment for Dems.

I say Blackburn +1

[Florida Man for Crime]

But seriously I'm surprised so many people think Bredesen is in the lead. Maybe I'm totally wrong, but TN Sen is lean rep according to me.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bredesen is narrowly ahead in this poll, but regardless, I think he is more likely than not to lose in the end (unless this and other future polls show him WAY ahead and above or close to 50).

It is possible that Bredesen could lead in all/most of the polls going into election day and then lose by a reasonable amount.

Bredesen has some characteristics of a quasi-incumbent (though not a recent one), and also in very general terms, in red states there is a tendency for Republicans to overperform polls on election day (and a tendency for dems to overperform polls in blue states). Even if other states break towards Dems late, that effect may be more muted or even go the other direction in TN.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Strong attack ad from Bredesen.

Well we have at least one Democrat taking IceSpear's advice.

That hardly qualifies as an attack ad. Weak sauce typical of Democrats.

[Florida Man for Crime]

You think this is a game son

Bredesen loses support of major Super Democratic PAC - Priorities USA - due to announcing he'd support Kavanaugh. Threatens Manchin with same.

Great Move, this is Tennessee after all.

It is possible it might actually help him, losing support of a Dem superpac. He can then point to that and say it is evidence of how independent he is (and the DSCC will still help him anyway, and will make up for whatever Priorities USA pulls away by shifting its own spending to TN).

[Florida Man for Crime]

LOL. So apparently Priorities USA wasn't spending anything in TN in the first place, so them "pulling their support" actually takes nothing away from Bredesen. Anyway, Bredesen is more than capable of paying for his own campaign.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Nashville and also Memphis should secede from the rest of TN and become 2 new city-states with 2 Senators each. Both would have populations greater than Wyoming, so they are deserving of 2 Senators each IMO.

[Florida Man for Crime]

We need to merge the Dakotas, merge Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. We can also chop off the Florida panhandle and give it to Alabama. It would also be smart to give DC and PR statehood and divide California into North and South.

We need:

DC
PR
Split California into 5 Dem states
Split Long Island (including Brooklyn and Queens so it is Dem) from NY
Split New Jersey into North Jersey and South Jersey (both Dem)

That would give us 8 new states, which is what would be needed to balance the Senate to be a level playing field in terms of PVI.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Pollsters of both parties have a vested interest in getting internals to show a close race. If the leading party thinks the race is over and starts to get complacent, then the trailing party can sweep in and take the lead. On the other hand, if the trailing party gets too far behind, its leadership and donors may just give up on the race, handing victory to the leading party on a sliver platter.

Yeah, that's always what people say in these situations. Take a look at CA-SEN 2010 right about now...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_California,_2010#Polling_2

Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman in California in 2010 ~ "We can still win. It's close, really. You just gotta believe! Ignore the Angus Reid poll that has Fiorina down 55-39 (Oct 6). Here, look at this Tarrance Group Republican internal poll (Oct 17-19) that has the race tied 44-44. And look at this junky Reuters poll (Oct 12-14) that has Fiorina only down 1, 46-45."

Note that "look at this junky reuters poll" is literally what people are saying with respect to TX-SEN, which is a similar case to TN.

The delusion is the same as Republicans still pretending they can win VA-10 (or keep it close), just to keep up appearances and run ads in the DC market so political reporters in the DC media market will see them.

[Florida Man for Crime]

There is still a lot of time in this race.  The positive Kavanaugh effect for Republicans is at its peak- it will only retract from here (the question is how much).  Bredesen has been leading much of the race- if Kavanaugh effect comes back down to earth- this is not over. (especially with Blackburn as the candidate- which many moderates are uncomfortable with... even if they like Kavanaugh).

It was never really a Kavanaugh effect. It is just partisanship and if it is happening now, it was always going to happen eventually, once election day got close, voters started to actually pay attention, and Blackburn's name ID went up outside of her own district. Like Santa Claus, once the magic is lost, it doesn't come back.

[Florida Man for Crime]

I think you are whistling by the graveyard. 

Could be wrong, but I think it is more a case of "this Blue Dog don't hunt no more."

I don't see a whole lot of difference here as compared to, for example, TN-04 in 2010. Which had nothing to do with Kavanaugh... And everything to do with Partisanship...

Lincoln Davis, the Dem incumbent, was a good ole boy Blue Dog who all the rural folk in middle Tenessee were very happy with... until they weren't...

Here is a funny quote from a newspaper article at the time:

http://archive.knoxnews.com/news/4th-district-house-candidates-get-dirty-television-ads-from-outside-interest-groups-heat-up-davis-d--358412541.html/

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This article is from October 19... Yes, later in October than we are currently...

The final actual margin was not even remotely "somewhere in between." It was an a 57.1% - 38.6% ruralstomping. And he was a good ole boy even up to mid-October!!!

What happened? Partisanship, the same thing that is happening in TN now.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Just like how Ron Johnson was DOA, Anthony Brown was going to easily be elected governor, and Mark Warner was totally safe. Blackburn is still favored, but an upset is still very possible.

None of those above examples were running in a Federal race in a state which was heavily partisan towards their party.

Ron Johnson - running in a pretty close to even PVI swing state.

Anthony Brown - was running in a deep blue state, but was running for Governor, not Senate. There is a reason why Maryland elected Michael Steele Lt. Governor, but when Steele tried to run for Senate, he lost by 10 points, and that reason is that it is a very different thing to elect a Governor of the other party in a state where the legislature is always controlled by your party, and to elect someone of the other party to the Senate.

Mark Warner - was running in a pretty close to even PVI swing state. I know people like to make jokes about how VA is safe Dem forever, and will never vote for another Republican again for anything, but it is D+1

In comparison to those, TN is R+14, and has voted consistently Republican in all statewide Federal races for going on decades now. It might, at some point eventually again, under the optimal circumstances, vote for a Dem Governor as a check on the ultra-safe Republican state legislature (although I wouldn't hold my breath too much), but it is not about to vote for a Dem Senator on the Federal level. When it comes down to it, TN would crawl over broken glass and do anything else at all necessary, short (possibly, or possibly not) of pedophilia, in order to vote for a blobfish for Senate, as long as that blobfish had an R next to its name.

...

This is what a blobfish looks like, btw:



It takes a truly perfect storm these days for Dems to win a Senate seat in a state so heavily R, or for Reps to win a Senate seat in a state so heavily D.

[Florida Man for Crime]

Virtually all the half-democrats have lost re-election...

Landrieu
Bayh
Lincoln
Pryor

I'm sure the list goes on

I think this has more to do with the fact that they were running in unwinnable states in unwinnable years than being half or full Democrats. Joe Donnelly and Claire McCaskill for example, would have been doomed if he had to run in 2010 or 2014, and would be doomed in 2018 if it were a Hillary midterm.

But it is true, being moderate/conservative doesn't bring you much (if anything) as a Dem these days, and one thing it does definitely do is hurt your fundraising and it makes your base less excited than otherwise (see exhibit Beto).

[Florida Man for Crime]

For people too lazy to clink link:

Lean R ---> Likely D

[Florida Man for Crime]

Considering that TN-SEN seems not to be competitive in public polls and just in terms of the fact that it should be extremely tough for a Dem to win there, it seems to nonetheless be getting a pretty big amount of independent expenditures from both sides. Maybe in part that is just a reflection of the fact that all these groups have more money than can be spent in states like North Dakota, but they also seem to think that it is closer than most of the people here seem to think (including me).

[Florida Man for Crime]

I have a really hard time seeing Bredesen winning. But... it is notable that outside groups/Superpacs continue to spend millions in TN, whereas they are not spending in TX.

[Florida Man for Crime]

https://twitter.com/chucklane1/status/1058894977126817792?s=21

Yikes

I think we dissected that poll a while back, haha.

The thing of interest there is more the claim about GOP internals than this poll itself.