TN-Hart Research (D): Bredesen +10, above 50%

[Badger]

The link notes that Bredesen is carrying Independents by 20 points, and picking off about one in five Republicans.

If a Democrat is going to win in the 2018 version of Tennessee, that's how they do it.

(Side note: I was a little astounded to see that he carried 42% of the Republican vote in his 2006 victory, per CNN exit polling. Then again, he carried 69% of the overall vote that year).

Governor's races, especially 12 years ago, were far less partisan than Congressional races. The former have to do primarily with the nuts and bolts of governing and somewhat less divisive issues of State Taxation and spending, at least somewhat less emphasis on social issues. Federal taxing and spending + social issues are front-and-center in federal races.

Not to mention, again, even Governor's races have become far more partisan in the last 12 years.

[Badger]

You know who might be the Evan Bayh/Ted Strickland of 2018?
Dino Rossi.

Actually, I think Dino Rossi will be the dino Rossi of 2018

[Badger]

Phil Bredesen 2018 = Evan Bayh 2016

Low IQ Republicans aren't turning out without boogeyman Obama and Clinton on the ballot

Democrats discovered that the much vaunted Obama coalition did not turn out in midterms. Trump supporters will learn the same lesson in 2018. Trump cultists will not turn out if their orange god is not on the ballot.

Actually, I think a big part of Trumps Coalition, which remember only got him to 46.5% of the vote, were number of folks who voted for Obama at least once, usually twice, but we're disillusioned by the continuing disintegration of the country's industrial job base and the role foreign trade has to play in it. Trump's running as a populist fighting for manufacturing jobs 1 a number of those voters over as we saw in places like Trumbull County Ohio and Oakland County Michigan. However, his governing as a billionaire plutocrat has chased away most of such voters who were willing to give him a shot.

Such voters were concentrated in the industrial Midwest and to some degree in the Northeast, so I'm not sure how much that'll play in Tennessee. But to what degree it does, those voters are likely to show up for the orange god-king in 2020 either.