Abstract
Republican U.S. Senator Bob Corker announced his retirement in 2017, adding Tennessee’s 2018 Senate race to the list of significant midterm contests. For Democrats, it offered an opportunity to flip a seat, to increase the odds of a Senate majority, and to test the geographical dominance of the Republican Party in the South. For Republicans, the open contest gave hardline conservatives a chance to win a state that had been a holdout against the tea party wave that had swept other southern states, and for the party to maintain its majority status in the U.S. Senate. Democrats ran former Governor Phil Bredesen—the only Democrat to win a statewide contest in Tennessee since 1996. Republicans countered with “congressman” Marsha Blackburn, an eight-term conservative and Trump loyalist. Blackburn’s victory further cemented the Volunteer State’s status as a southern Republican stronghold.
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Notes
- 1.
Paul Kane and Karoun Demirjian, “Bob Corker, Republican Senator from Tennessee, Announces His Retirement,” Washington Post, September 26, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/republican-senator-from-tennessee-announces-his-retirement/2017/09/26/df106d96-a2f3-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14_story.html?utm_term=.25a92502a261
- 2.
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- 3.
The Southern Manifesto was a document that announced opposition to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and denied the authority of the federal government to intervene in southern political affairs. See J. David Woodard, The New Southern Politics, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2013).
- 4.
Michael Nelson, “Tennessee,” in The New Politics of the Old South, 6th ed., ed. Charles Bullock and Mark Rozell (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).
- 5.
Tom Humphrey, “Tennesseans Favor Bredesen More Than Obama,” Knoxville News Sentinel, July 27, 2010, http://archive.knoxnews.com/news/state/tennesseans-favor-bredesen-more-than-obama-ep-407991706-358609991.html/?page=1
- 6.
Jackson Bakr, “Marsha Blackburn: Beacon of the Right,” Memphis: The City Magazine, August 1, 2011, https://memphismagazine.com/features/marsha-blackburn/
- 7.
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- 8.
Michael Collins and Joel Ebert, “Inside the White House, Congress and the Statehouse: How Sen. Bob Corker Again Decided That He Would Retire,” The Tennessean, March 3, 2018, https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2018/03/03/bob-corker-senate-decision-trump-tennessee-marsha-blackburn-2018/383217002/
- 9.
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- 10.
Brett Kelman, “Bredesen Backs Effort to Reverse Opioid Law that ‘Defanged’ DEA; Blackburn Calls for Prescription Limit,” The Tennessean, August 24, 2018, https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/tn-elections/2018/08/24/opioid-epidemic-marsha-blackburn-phil-bredesen-bill-lee-karl-dean/1061743002/
- 11.
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- 12.
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- 13.
Shannon Van Sant, “Taylor Swift Endorses Democratic Candidates in Tennessee,” NPR, October 8, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/10/08/655599374/taylor-swift-endorses-democratic-candidates-in-tennessee
- 14.
Amy B. Wang, “Taylor Swift’s Endorsement of Democrats is Followed by a Spike in Voter Registrations,” Washington Post, October 9, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2018/10/09/taylor-swifts-endorsement-democrats-causes-spike-voter-registrations/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ae593f7c0f94
- 15.
Jonathan Matisse, “Tennessee Senate Dem Hopeful Says He Supports Kavanaugh,” Associated Press, October 5, 2018, https://www.apnews.com/229850ccd247488294d5627d35ad3d5e
- 16.
All data accessed at OpenSecrets.org
- 17.
Exit polling data accessed at CNN.com
- 18.
Jonathan Martin, “A Changing Tennessee Weighs a Moderate or Conservative for Senate,” New York Times, October 24, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/us/politics/tennessee-senate-phil-bredesen-marsha-blackburn.html
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Gary C. Jacobson and Jamie L. Carson, The Politics of Congressional Elections, 9th ed. (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).
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Stockley, J. (2020). Tennessee Senate Race: Call It What You Want, but Tennessee Is a Red Wall to the South. In: Foreman, S., Godwin, M., Wilson, W. (eds) The Roads to Congress 2018. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19819-0_14
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