In Tennessee, Democrat struggles to get voters to vote as polls reveal slippage

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (Reuters) – A few weeks ago, Phil Bredesen of Tennessee was a beacon for a Democratic party that was hoping to break into the conservative "Trump country" and secure the resumption of majority control of the US Senate. November elections.

Polls showed Bredesen, the 74-year-old former state governor, was taking part in a surprisingly close race with US Republican Representative Marsha Blackburn to replace retired Republican Senator Bob Corker.

But this battle under high scrutiny in the Senate seems to have taken a new impetus against Bredesen despite the support of pop star Taylor Swift and rumors of a Democratic wave. On October 6, Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's polarized Supreme Court choice, gave Republicans new energy, Republican party leaders said.

A New York Times poll Upshot / Siena College last week showed that Bredesen behind Blackburn could reach 14 percentage points. This followed a CBS News / YouGov survey from October 2 to 5, showing that Bredesen was shooting from behind by eight points.

Bredesen struggles to rally in a fight that has drawn national attention. With Republicans having a 51-49 advantage, Democrats only need two seats to take control of the Senate. But Democrats have a narrow path towards the majority and must defend seats in more races in the air than Republicans. Of the 26 Senate seats Democrats, including two independents caucus with Democrats, 10 are in the states Trump won in 2016.

To achieve a majority, many Democrats placed their hopes in Bredesen.

Democratic activists redoubled their efforts to get supporters of Bredesen, many of whom had recently registered, to vote before the November 6 elections, a concern in a state with the lowest turnout in the 2014 parliamentary elections. Early voting begins Wednesday.

Swift's support for Bredesen in his home country was attributed to an increase in the number of young voter registrations last week. But Democrats are worried that new applications will not be processed in time to allow people to take advantage of the early voting process.

In addition, Bredesen's opponent, Blackburn, is a fervent Conservative supported by Trump in a state where the president remains popular with many Republicans.

"We are going to win," said Blackburn, 66, in a recent interview with Reuters, succinctly summarizing his vision of the race.

"I can find them in every place"

To succeed in a state that Trump won by 26 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election, Bredesen must be conservative enough to attract a large number of Republican and independent voters.

However, he also needs to retain the support of a left-wing Democratic party, particularly in the highly democratic and African-American communities around Memphis and Nashville, where he needs to be a leader. a strong participation.

"In a state as red as this one, I have to collect the votes wherever I can find them," he said in an interview with Reuters.

Data from the state's August Republican and Democrat nomination contest confirms this.

At the statewide, 211,000 Democrats voted in the 2018 primary, up 28% from 2014. Yet nearly twice as many Republicans, about 398,000, voted in the primary.

Bredesen's road to victory is close, said University of Tennessee political scientist Katie Cahill. To win, he must collect almost as many votes as when he ran for governor in 2006, otherwise Blackburn must be seriously damaged by Trump's loss of popularity among independents and some Republicans, while Bredesen collects these votes.

Bredesen bet on a centrist course. He opposes the idea of ​​a government funded health system. He says he will not support Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer, the target of many Republican attack ads.

He is also in favor of tax cuts for corporations – a generally Republican position – although he has criticized Republican's tax reform package of last year, asserting that it's only a matter of time. It had not helped the middle class enough, worsened the deficit and had less impact than promised.

Most of the time, he avoided talking about Trump, although he criticized his trade policy and described the separation of migrant children from their parents at the US border as "morally bankrupt". And it does not advocate the idea of ​​a democratic Senate takeover. .

"If it becomes a race around a Democratic majority in the Senate, I'm in trouble," he said.

To the chagrin of other Democrats, he publicly supported Kavanaugh's confirmation in the Supreme Court.

"It takes away the sails of those who have tried to organize people on the ground, under the pretext that Bredesen is a progressive candidate – or at least a candidate on which progressives can rally," said Earle Fisher, a Memphis pastor and voter registration activist.

Bredesen's positions have garnered mixed support from Democratic voters in Memphis, an old southern Mississippi river known for its blues clubs and rich racial history.

It is located in Shelby County, the state's most populous county, made up of 53 percent of African-Americans and was one of two counties to support Hillary Clinton in Trump in 2016.

Lakethen Mason, a marketing and branding consultant in the region, said Bredesen's positions offended him and he may not vote for a senator when he votes.

But Eunnice McNeil, who like Mason is black, said she did not care at all that Bredesen was at the right of many members of his party.

"I am a democrat," said McNeil. "I vote for the Democrats."