Poll finds Bredesen with 30 percent support among likely GOP voters in Blackburn’s home area
A poll of likely Republican voters in state House District 61, which includes the Brentwood home of U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, indicates 30 percent support Democrat Phil Bredesen over Blackburn in the U.S. Senate race, according to Tennessee Star. Blackburn had 61 percent support with the rest undecided.
Blackburn urges Trump administration to reconsider ‘broad tariffs’
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn has drafted a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross urging the Trump administration to reconsider “broad tariffs” that raise “the grave potential for retaliatory tariffs to adversely impact industries across the state,” reports the Times Free Press.
Bredesen ‘horrified’ by separation of illegal immigrant parents from children; Blackburn blames liberals
Statements from U.S. Senate candidates Marsha Blackburn, Republican, and Phil Bredesen, Democrat, as reported by The Tennessean, on separation of children from their parents when detained at the U.S.-Mexico when suspected of trying to enter the country illegally:
Blackburn-Bredesen race dividing families?
The U.S. Senate race between Republican Marsha Blackburn and Democrat Phil Bredesen is dividing families in the Knoxville area, says Victor Ashe in his latest column.
Once upon a time, Marsha Blackburn was advised that running for public office would be waste of time and money
A detailed Yahoo News profile piece bears the headline, ‘Don’t call Marsha Blackburn a feminist, even if she is one.” It’s a good read and generally flattering – enough so that her U.S. Senate campaign emailed supporters and media a big excerpt from the lengthy biographical background portion, dating back to her winning a Mississippi chicken-cooking contest at age 10 and before.
Politico: List of competitive U.S. Senate seats shrinking, with TN still on the list
The U.S. Senate battleground map has shrunk dramatically in recent weeks, reports Politico, and that’s a net plus for Democrats but not enough to change their status as heavy underdogs to win the chamber in November.
Democratic incumbents look increasingly safe in four Rust Belt states President Trump carried in 2016 — Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where Republicans are locked in a bitter primary until August. Both parties agree a core universe of states are truly in play: Republicans are targeting Democratic incumbents in Missouri, Indiana, Florida and North Dakota, while Democrats are contesting GOP-held seats in Nevada, Arizona and Tennessee. There is disagreement on how competitive West Virginia and Montana are.
…One big clue on which states are truly in play came this week when the Democratic Senate Majority PAC placed fall ad reservations in Florida, West Virginia, Montana, Missouri, Indiana, North Dakota, Tennessee, Nevada and Arizona. For now, the group decided Brown, Casey, Stabenow and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) don’t need extra help.
Steven Law, who runs the McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund, said that Democrats’ “target list is a lot like ours.”
“There were a few states they left off that we think could be competitive,” said Law, whose group has not yet placed its reservations. “But right now, we think the field of battle is already probably about 80 percent defined, and I think both sides see the battle lines as they are.”
(Note: The Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC said its ad buy totals $80 million in the nine targeted states, but did not give a state-by-state breakdown. Press release HERE.)
… In Tennessee, Democrats are upbeat about former Gov. Phil Bredesen, who won every county in the state when he last ran in 2006 and remains popular. Republicans argue Bredesen will go the way of other Democratic retreads, like Ted Strickland and Evan Bayh in 2016, both of whom lost by sizable margins. Trump visited Tennessee late last month to boost Rep. Marsha Blackburn and attack Bredesen, though Republicans acknowledge they will need a more sustained effort to drag down Bredesen’s favorability.
Bredesen berated at TNGOP fundraiser that brought in $760K
In Friday night speeches to the Tennessee Republican Party’s annual Statesmen’s Dinner, U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Marsha Blackburn criticized former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen and praised President Donald Trump. The state GOP collected more than $750,000 at the fundraising event. Continue reading
You can now buy Phil Bredesen ‘Cut the Carp’ baseball caps
U.S. Senate candidate Phil Bredesen is apparently the only candidate for statewide office this year to make a campaign issue out of the Asian carp invasion of Tennessee lakes and rivers. Now he’s using it as a fundraising device (gimmick?), offering baseball caps bearing the slogan ‘Phil Bredesen, U.S. Senate, Cut the Carp’ or ‘Phil Bredesen Against Asian Carp’ at $25 each.
NRSC echoes Trump’s Bredesen bashing in online video
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Phil Bredesen is declared “another obstructionist Washington Democrat” in a National Republican Senatorial Committee online video that uses clips of President Trump criticizing the former Tennessee governor during a campaign rally for Republican Marsha Blackburn in Nashville last week. Blackburn’s campaign posted the same clips as online video shortly after the rally. The NRSC video is entitled “Whatever His Name Is” — a label Trump applied to Bredesen at one point during his remarks.
PolitiFact rates TNGOP Bredesen-bashing press release as ‘half true’
PolitiFact has deemed “half true” a Tennessee Republican Party press release denouncing Democrat Phil Bredesen TV ad that boasts of his record in recruiting economic development while governor, including creation of 200,000 new jobs. It’s a bit of an oddity in that the ad itself is not given a truth rating, as PolitiFact often does on political advertising claims.
