NASHVILLE - In Tennessee's fiercest U.S. Senate race in a dozen years, former Democratic governor Phil Bredesen and Republican U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn have placed their respective bets on how voters stand in the era of President Donald Trump.
Bredesen, a former two-term governor and Nashville mayor, is gambling that moderate Republican and independent voters who supported him in the past in a red state that went overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016 will still support him based on his past record.
And he promises to remain a get-it-done pragmatic moderate in the Senate and work across the partisan divide in the Senate, as well as with Trump.
Blackburn, meanwhile, is relying on her fellow Republicans, who have elected GOP candidates to the Senate since 1994 and put Republican Gov. Bill Haslam in office to succeed Bredesen in 2010.
She touts her hard-right credentials in Congress as well as her loyal support of Trump. And, Blackburn warns, Bredesen can't be trusted if he gets into the Senate, where Republicans have a slender 51-49 margin.
Trump makes his third appearance in Tennessee on her behalf in this Sunday's Chattanooga rally. Five polls last week show Blackburn pulling ahead of Bredesen, who earlier led. In 2016, Trump carried the state over Democrat Hillary Clinton by 26 percentage points. *But two new surveys released late last week found the contest a tie.
Hands down, this year's Senate contest is already Tennessee's most expensive campaign ever - a whopping $84 million minimum already spent as candidates and GOP and Democratic outside groups wage war. With national Democrats seeking to make gains in the Senate, outside groups as of Friday had spent $56.75 million in a blitz of mostly negative ads.
Early voters last week, meanwhile, blazed through their respective midterm election totals for 2006, 2010 and 2014 contests, approaching levels of the 2016 presidential race, aided in part by the open race for governor between Democrat Karl Dean and Republican Bill Lee.
Blackburn and Bredesen are vying to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Chattanooga, who has feuded publicly with the president.
Blackburn's advantage ranges from 4 to 9 points ahead in various surveys from Fox, CNN and others, while her bottom-line support ranges from 49 percent to 51 percent. But a new poll released late last week by East Tennessee State University's Center for Applied Social Research of 610 likely voters found Blackburn and Bredesen in a dead heat, each with 44 percent. The Oct. 22-29 survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.
A second poll conducted Oct. 28-31 among 480 likely voters and those who have already voted by Nashville-based Targoz Strategic Marketing found the contest tied at 49 percent for each. The margin of error was 4.15 percent.
Veteran political strategist Tom Ingram, who up until this election cycle has advised every successful GOP statewide candidate here since 1978, including Corker in his 2006 narrow victory over Democrat Harold Ford Jr., believes the Senate contest remains tight.
"I still think it's a close margin of error race, and I think that polls are suspect these days," said Ingram, whose past clients have largely been moderate Republicans. "Things can still pop around."
Former Republican U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp of Chattanooga predicted Blackburn would win, saying "voters at the end of the day don't want to look in the rear view mirror" at former office holders like Bredesen. "They want to look in the windshield at their candidates. And Marsha's future is out here in the windshield and her opponent's in the rear view mirror, frankly."
The die of the contest was cast immediately after Corker announced in late 2017 that he wouldn't run.
"I know the left calls me a wing nut or a knuckle-dragging conservative," Blackburn said in a video quickly announcing her candidacy. "And you know what, I say that's all right, bring it on."
Announcing later, Bredesen, a Corker friend, said "we all know Washington is broken. But while politicians are up there playing partisan games and working on their reelection, out here in America, back here in Tennessee, we have some real problems."
And so the race has gone with Blackburn hewing closely to Trump on most issues while Bredesen has gone to issues he thinks Tennesseans still care about such as boosting rural broadband internet service. He promises he won't automatically oppose the president and that he can work with him on issues where they agree like negotiating with drug companies on prescription prices.
Over the course of the campaign, Blackburn as well as Trump have hit Bredesen, saying he'll be loyal to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., with Trump earlier this year calling Bredesen Schumer's "tool." They raised concerns that Bredesen's election would lead to a Schumer takeover.
Bredesen has attacked Blackburn's co-sponsorship of a 2016 law that made it harder for the federal Drug Enforcement Agency to control pharmaceutical manufacturers shipments of opioids to states, including Tennessee, a state where the painkiller epidemic is a serious issue. He charges Blackburn accepted some $800,000 from drug companies over her 16-year congressional career.
Earlier in the fall, Bredesen was hit by both Blackburn and some fellow Democrats over Trump's nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. After allegations of sexual harassment were levelled against Kavanaugh, Bredesen said he wanted to wait until a new hearing before saying where he was.
After the hearing, he said that based on what information was publicly available, he would have voted to confirm him. Blackburn said that meant nothing, but the issue did infuriate a number of Democrats.
The former governor says he has recovered from the controversy.
But a new one has emerged as Blackburn and Trump hit illegal immigration hard with the president attacking a caravan of Central American migrants making their way through Mexico to the U.S. border.
Contact staff writer Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550. Follow him on Twitter @AndySher1.