Trump Visit Spotlights Competitive Tennessee Senate Race

While Democrats face an uphill climb defending seats held by a handful of incumbent senators in states Donald Trump won overwhelmingly, they are hoping to flip the script in Tennessee.

Former Gov. Phil Bredesen appears to be waging a strong campaign against Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Bob Corker. In a sign of how competitive the contest has become, President Trump traveled to Nashville on Tuesday to host a fundraiser for the congresswoman and rally supporters who Republicans hope will turn out down the ballot in November.

"We need Marsha in the Senate to continue the amazing progress and work we've done in the last year and a half," Trump told the crowd. "Marsha's very liberal Democrat opponent, Phil Bredesen -- who is he? He is an absolute and total tool of Chuck Schumer, and of course, the MS-13 lover Nancy Pelosi."

Republicans are keeping Democrats on their toes in North Dakota, Indiana, West Virginia, Montana and Missouri, all of which the president carried by high double digits in 2016 and where he remains popular. The Senate landscape thus provides ample pickup opportunities for a GOP aiming to expand its slim majority in the upper chamber, in stark contrast to a House map that puts many blue state Republican incumbents in peril. Democrats see opportunities to neutralize any Senate losses by picking off Republican seats in presidential battlegrounds like Arizona and Nevada.

But flipping Tennessee, a state Trump won by 26 points, could be more consequential to their fortunes. And it presents Democrats with the rare opportunity in a Senate race to run as the Washington outsider.