Is The Open Tennessee Senate Seat Flippable?

Schumer has recruited 2 of the worst members of the House to run for the two most winnable 2018 Senate seats-- Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), actually the very worst Democrat in the House, and Jacky Rosen (NV), a pathetic non-entity. Only a wave good sweep garbage like those two worthless conservatives into the Senate. And Schumer is counting on just that. On the other hand, Schumer has worked hard to successfully recruit the most electable Democrat in Tennessee for a seat few thought the Democrats had any chance to win: popular and well-respected former governor, Phil Bredesen. Schumer has almost never done anything right in terms of candidate recruitment-- and he was the disastrous chair of the DSCC at one point-- but he seems to have with Bredesen.

The 74 year old Bredesen, a moderate Democrat, was elected governor in 2002 and served until 2011. Before that he was mayor of Nashville and Davidson County. Earlier in life he studied physics at Harvard and founded HealthAmerica Corp, an insurance company, when he moved to Nashville. It made him into a multimillionaire (and he never accepted a salary while he was governor).

Bredesen was a spectacularly successful mayor of Nashville-- especially in regard to education and sports (he persuaded the NFL to bring the Houston Oilers to his city as the Tennessee Titans)-- and that helped him win the governor's mansion. He's famous for cutting services as governor rather than implementing an income tax, which had been planned by his Republican predecessor. He explained to Tennesseans at the time that "you can't have Massachusetts services and Tennessee taxes." Healthcare suffered during his terms but, once again, education flourished and he even increased teachers' salaries. In 2006, he was reelected bigly-- 1,247,491 votes to 540,853, sweeping all 95 counties-- and with more votes than any gubernatorial candidate in Tennessee history.

The state has changed politically since then-- for the worse--but with Bob Corker having announced his retirement and the 2 GOP frontrunners-- ultra-bigoted Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn and ultra-crooked Farmer Fincher-- trying to outdo each other in terms of crackpottery, there could be room for Bredesen to win a state with an R+14 PVI (beaten only by 8 states: Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming), a state that went for Trump 1,517,402 (61.1%) to 867,110 (34.9%). Remember how Bredesen won all 95 counties in his last eelction? Clinton only won 3 of the 95-- Davidson, Shelby and Haywood. Bredesen was the last Democrat to win statewide in Tennessee. He'll definitely be an underdog but... if the anti-Trump/anti-GOP wave is high enough to reach that far South...