TN-4: Winnable by Democrats?

[Adam Griffin]

There has been a lot of local media attention over the Republican primary in TN-4, in which Scott DesJarlais appeared all but defeated - even throughout election night, until the very last precinct reported and gave him a 35 vote lead. After the final counts wrapped up today, he appears to be up by a similar amount.

I recall reading somewhere on Daily Kos (can't find it now) that from analyzing all of the House races in 2012 via regression analysis, TN-4 was the strongest relative performance for Democrats in a district not held by a Democrat when compared to the natural D/R breakdowns of each district.

The candidate in 2012, Eric Stewart, was a two-term Democratic State Senator, first elected in 2008. His Senate district was similarly about 62% Republican in the presidential election of 2008.



He ultimately received 44% of the vote in 2012 (in comparison, DesJarlais ousted Lincoln Davis two years prior in a more Democratic district, 60-40). Just to put it into additional perspective, DRA shows that TN-4 was a 63-36 McCain district in 2008 (57-43 Rep). Apparently the DCCC also had it on its list in 2012:

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What I found odd was that he actually lost his home county in 2012, but managed to flip three counties that were all 60% Romney counties (I believe these were in his Senate district). These three very white, rural counties are in a part of Tennessee that up until recently elected quite a number of Democrats (even Obama was in the low-to-mid-40s in these counties in 2008; Kerry won Grundy and Van Buren). Unfortunately, these counties only make up about 8% of the district.

Overall, DesJarlais broke 60% in just four counties (which only comprise 20% of the CD's population). I originally calculated all of this some days ago and didn't jot it down, but I believe DesJarlais fell below 55% in Rutherford County (a solid 1/3 of the district's population) and a couple of other counties.

Did the DCCC actually make a play in this district (and is that what boosted him)? Was it DesJarlais' abortion scandals that affected the result? Was Eric Stewart simply a great candidate (especially considering he broke through as a freshman in 2008 in rural TN and originally ousted a three-term incumbent on his county commission)? Could TN-4 pull a John Barrow in the future and actually elect a Democrat? Had I known he was going to do so well during the cycle, I would have paid more attention to what was going on in my own back yard, but this really was a shocker in retrospect.

EDIT: Another thing I just noticed - Stewart managed to raise a whopping $710 k for his 2012 campaign, which is...impressive, for this day and age in the territory. DesJarlais ultimately raised $1.2 m.

[Badger]

If Democrats couldn't take Desjarlis out in 2012, they won't in 2014. FWIW Stewart isn't running this time. The Dem nominee is Lenda Sherrell, a Chattanooga area accountant. Sounds like a "some dude-ette" type of candidate.

The primary voters of TN-4 should be ashamed of themselves (or at least about 45% of them).

[Miles]

I doubt it. Maybe if they had a better candidate.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Short of Lincoln Davis, Eric Stewart was probably our best candidate in the district and he couldn't win in 2012.  That was a good test as to whether we're ever gonna get back places like TN-4, TN-8, AL-5, VA-9, AR-1, etc.

[Skill and Chance]

Short of Lincoln Davis, Eric Stewart was probably our best candidate in the district and he couldn't win in 2012.  That was a good test as to whether we're ever gonna get back places like TN-4, TN-8, AL-5, VA-9, AR-1, etc.

If Hillary Clinton were to have a 10 point national win in 2016/20, I could see one or two of those coming back.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Short of Lincoln Davis, Eric Stewart was probably our best candidate in the district and he couldn't win in 2012.  That was a good test as to whether we're ever gonna get back places like TN-4, TN-8, AL-5, VA-9, AR-1, etc.

If Hillary Clinton were to have a 10 point national win in 2016/20, I could see one or two of those coming back.

If I had wheels, I'd be a wagon

[Adam Griffin]

I wonder if Stewart will run again in 2016, and is biding his time for another presidential year turnout scenario? It'd be a shame for him to just run once, considering how well he did given the circumstances. He's pretty dang young, too.

Perhaps this is just fool's gold, but where I come from, this district is about as malleable as it gets for anything within 100 miles of me. Looking at Miles' presidential map, Stewart managed to get 1 out of 6 Romney voters in 2012. He managed to bridge 2/3 of the gap between Obama's performance and victory; if he could pull in 25% of Romney 2012 voters instead of the 16-17% that he got, he could win.

[Adam Griffin]

Short of Lincoln Davis, Eric Stewart was probably our best candidate in the district and he couldn't win in 2012.  That was a good test as to whether we're ever gonna get back places like TN-4, TN-8, AL-5, VA-9, AR-1, etc.

But he actually did even better than Davis, depending on how you weigh the factors. Maybe Miles can tell us how much to the right the district was shifted during redistricting, but Stewart managed to do 4 points better than incumbent Davis in a presumably more Republican district (albeit during a presidential year). It'd be helpful to know what the old district looked like with Davis in 2008 and compare that to Stewart in 2012.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Short of Lincoln Davis, Eric Stewart was probably our best candidate in the district and he couldn't win in 2012.  That was a good test as to whether we're ever gonna get back places like TN-4, TN-8, AL-5, VA-9, AR-1, etc.

But he actually did even better than Davis, depending on how you weigh the factors. Maybe Miles can tell us how much to the right the district was shifted during redistricting, but Stewart managed to do 4 points better than incumbent Davis in a presumably more Republican district (albeit during a presidential year). It'd be helpful to know what the old district looked like with Davis in 2008 and compare that to Stewart in 2012.

Right, but Davis was also running in 2010

[Miles]

There's actually less common area than I thought between the district Davis represented and the current version. Only about 240K people (34%) in the new 4th were carried over from the old one:



Still, the purple common area gives you a good apples-to-apples comparison. Davis lost the purple area 41/59, which was exactly his districtwide margin. In 2012, DesJarlais carried the purple area 55/45, again, close to his 56/44 overall win.

The current version is less elastic because it has Rutherford County. Davis wouldn't have as much appeal there as in those northern rural counties that were excised.

The old version would have voted 68/30 (!) for Romney. If Davis held that, it would be the most Republican seat held by a Democrat.

I started to make a map of the 2012 House race here after the election. That might be worth picking back up now...

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

I wonder if Stewart will run again in 2016, and is biding his time for another presidential year turnout scenario?

WKRN-TV: Eric Stewart indicted for Insurance Fraud:
http://www.wkrn.com/story/23893564/eric-stewart-indicted-for-insurance-fraud

Winchester Herald-Chronicle: Eric Stewart pleads guilty:
http://www.heraldchronicle.com/?p=12420

[Sol]

There's actually less common area than I thought between the district Davis represented and the current version. Only about 240K people (34%) in the new 4th were carried over from the old one:



Still, the purple common area gives you a good apples-to-apples comparison. Davis lost the purple area 41/59, which was exactly his districtwide margin. In 2012, DesJarlais carried the purple area 55/45, again, close to his 56/44 overall win.

The current version is less elastic because it has Rutherford County. Davis wouldn't have as much appeal there as in those northern rural counties that were excised.

The old version would have voted 68/30 (!) for Romney. If Davis held that, it would be the most Republican seat held by a Democrat.

I started to make a map of the 2012 House race here after the election. That might be worth picking back up now...

This is completely idle speculation, but I wonder if in 20-30 years Rutherford County will vote for the Democrats. It seems to be diversifying a good bit in the Northwest, and has a large student population.

[KCDem]

Not happening, Safe R.

[Adam Griffin]

There's actually less common area than I thought between the district Davis represented and the current version. Only about 240K people (34%) in the new 4th were carried over from the old one:



Still, the purple common area gives you a good apples-to-apples comparison. Davis lost the purple area 41/59, which was exactly his districtwide margin. In 2012, DesJarlais carried the purple area 55/45, again, close to his 56/44 overall win.

The current version is less elastic because it has Rutherford County. Davis wouldn't have as much appeal there as in those northern rural counties that were excised.

The old version would have voted 68/30 (!) for Romney. If Davis held that, it would be the most Republican seat held by a Democrat.

I started to make a map of the 2012 House race here after the election. That might be worth picking back up now...

Thanks for that!

I wonder if Stewart will run again in 2016, and is biding his time for another presidential year turnout scenario?

WKRN-TV: Eric Stewart indicted for Insurance Fraud:
http://www.wkrn.com/story/23893564/eric-stewart-indicted-for-insurance-fraud

Winchester Herald-Chronicle: Eric Stewart pleads guilty:
http://www.heraldchronicle.com/?p=12420

f[inks].

[Vosem]

Awareness of the DesJarlais scandal might be higher now, but time has also passed. I can see Sherrell keeping DesJarlais' margin low -- maybe mid-single-digits -- but I don't know that there's a path to victory for Sherrell.

[Adam Griffin]

Working on a map right now, Miles, and I'm updating your template as best I can with recent precinct boundary changes.

[Miles]

^ Awesome!

[Adam Griffin]

OK, so I did everything except for Rutherford. The precincts in DRA and those in the 2012 election results do not match up enough for me to be able to tell; looks like there have been some splits and some consolidation.

Maury, Rhea and Sequatchie basically had to be drawn by hand. In Maury's case, the boundaries on the original map appear to just barely slice into multiple precincts, so that might need to be checked out, too. I also used a purple shade for one tied precinct.



And comparing to the presidential results...



Update: So here's what I decided to do with Rutherford. All of the precincts there are numbered (1-1, 1-2; 2-1, 2-2; etc). Since there appears to be the same number of (21) precinct groups in both the election results from 2012 and on the map/in DRA from 2008, I simply grouped each set together and colored all from the same group on the map the same color after adding all of the group's results together. An example from the precinct group beginning with "4":

DRA/Map:
4-1
4-2
4-3
4-4

Election Results, 2012:
4-1 1,038 / 865
4-2 495 / 479
4-3 774 / 579

"4" = 2307 / 1923
"4" = 54.4% / 45.6%
All four precincts on map beginning with "4" are colored with >50% shade

It's crazy to see how close Stewart came to winning Rutherford. He got 47% of the vote. There are many groupings on here where he barely lost and as such, the map looks quite Republican at first glance. A few votes here and there would have produced a much redder-looking Rutherford.

[Adam Griffin]

Update: So here's what I decided to do with Rutherford. All of the precincts there are numbered (1-1, 1-2; 2-1, 2-2; etc). Since there appears to be the same number of (21) precinct groups in both the election results from 2012 and on the map/in DRA from 2008, I simply grouped each set together and colored all from the same group on the map the same color after adding all of the group's results together. An example from the precinct group beginning with "4":

DRA/Map:
4-1
4-2
4-3
4-4

Election Results, 2012:
4-1 1,038 / 865
4-2 495 / 479
4-3 774 / 579

"4" = 2307 / 1923
"4" = 54.4% / 45.6%
All four precincts on map beginning with "4" are colored with >50% shade

It's crazy to see how close Stewart came to winning Rutherford. He got 47% of the vote. There are many groupings on here where he barely lost and as such, the map looks quite Republican at first glance. A few votes here and there would have produced a much redder-looking Rutherford.

[Adam Griffin]

Since nobody loved the map I made () and there are some new developments in the 2014 race, I'm bumping this.

Linda Sherrell actually hasn't been doing all that bad of a job raising money and getting her name out through the district; I'm impressed given the circumstances. I don't think she'll do as well as Stewart, but I'm loving the fact that she's dropping ads like this (brand new) all over TV; "praying for someone" is about as bad of an insult as you can throw around these parts:

Linda Sherrell Calls Scott DesJarlais a Wifebeater

[Flake]

I never saw the map until now

That was a really effective ad imo

[Adam Griffin]

Fabulous news!

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[IceSpear]

Fabulous news!

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Doubt it matters. Didn't his primary opponent outspend him like 20:1? As we all know, IOKIYAR.

[eric82oslo]

Linda Sherrell actually hasn't been doing all that bad of a job raising money and getting her name out through the district; I'm impressed given the circumstances. I don't think she'll do as well as Stewart, but I'm loving the fact that she's dropping ads like this (brand new) all over TV; "praying for someone" is about as bad of an insult as you can throw around these parts:

Linda Sherrell Calls Scott DesJarlais a Wifebeater

Freedom Fighter

[Maxwell]

Fabulous news!

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Doubt it matters. Didn't his primary opponent outspend him like 20:1? As we all know, IOKIYAR.

This district is too Republican for that. Desjarlais will still win. Hope the Republicans give him the stanky boot in 2016, but I doubt it.