TN-GOV 2018: Can Karl Dean win the Tennessee governorship?

[Suburbia]

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Karl Dean is a formidable candidate for Tennessee governor in 2018. The Tennessee Democratic Party has lost relevance ever since Harold Ford, Jr. and Phil Bredesen left office. They are only 2 Tennessee House Democrats, and like the rest of the South, white Democrats have been dwindling since probably the 1990s. Can the former Nashville mayor win the governorship in a red state like Tennessee?

[AppleJackass]

It is a possibility however I believe it is unlikely. I think it would depend on who the Republicans would nominate. If it is Bob Corker then Dean is DOA. If it is Mark Norris, Beth Harwell, Stephen Fincher, or Alberto Gonzales then I believe it is Safe/Likely R. If it is Diane Black then I believe it is Likely/Lean R. However, if the national tide is against the Republicans in 2018 and none of the top tier Republicans won then I would say it would be too close to call.

[KingSweden]

Maybe. Not likely tho

[Del Tachi]

Would require a disastrous GOP nominee.

I expect Randy Boyd will clean the floor though.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think would be Dean's best path to victory?  In days of yore Dems won in TN by doing relatively well in rural areas, especially in West Tennessee.  Dean's likeliest path to victory would probably be posting huge margins in Shelby and Davidson, flipping Knox, Hamilton and Montgomery, and keeping it close enough in Williamson.  A very urban coalition. 

[smoltchanov]

Would require a disastrous GOP nominee.

I expect Randy Boyd will clean the floor though.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think would be Dean's best path to victory?  In days of yore Dems won in TN by doing relatively well in rural areas, especially in West Tennessee.  Dean's likeliest path to victory would probably be posting huge margins in Shelby and Davidson, flipping Knox, Hamilton and Montgomery, and keeping it close enough in Williamson.  A very urban coalition. 

Yep. Rural southern Democrats are almost universaly dead or Republican now...

[Adam Griffin]

Ignoring for a second the massively-large swings that would be needed to pull it off, I tried to generate a map based on what TN looks like now, with a bit of consideration placed on both ancestral habits and current realities.

I broke the state into two portions: the pink areas are those that either currently vote Democratic, have done so in the past decade or are otherwise heavily-populated but not immensely GOP (42% of the state). The blue areas are the rest (58% of 2016 electorate). The pink area narrowly voted for Clinton (52-48 in the two-way model); the blue was 75-25 Trump.

Assuming that even midterm/state elections are primarily tinged with a nationalized climate right now, I worked my way back from the 2016 results, assuming that the pink areas would need a 30-point swing and the blue areas would need a 25-point swing. This generates an effectively-tied map (GOP win of 4k votes) that looks as such:



Very few counties would need to be 70% or more in favor of the GOP nominee. Dean wins Knox by one point, Hamilton by 12, and Davidson/Shelby by 57-58 (i.e. almost 80% of the vote). Madison and Rutherford flip as well (by 15 and 4, respectively).

[Del Tachi]

^Per Adam's analysis, a lot of Memphis and Nashville Whites would have to come along for the ride if Dean was getting anywhere near the Governor's Mansion.  A Democrat winning Hamilton by 12 points is unheard of.  Trump would have to be more than wildly unpopular for this to happen in 2018.

Just shows how difficult states like TN have become for the Dems now. 

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Would require a disastrous GOP nominee.

I expect Randy Boyd will clean the floor though.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think would be Dean's best path to victory?  In days of yore Dems won in TN by doing relatively well in rural areas, especially in West Tennessee.  Dean's likeliest path to victory would probably be posting huge margins in Shelby and Davidson, flipping Knox, Hamilton and Montgomery, and keeping it close enough in Williamson.  A very urban coalition. 

I don't think there is a path to a Democratic statewide win in Tennessee.  A close GOP win map would probably look like 2014 Amendment 1 (which passed 53-47).
http://nashvillepublicmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/amendment-1-vote-map1.png

[Tekken_Guy]

Doubtful. The best hope for Dean is building a minority coalition and pulling some anti-Trump whites onto his side.

[Rjjr77]

How does he do with Italians?

[PragmaticPopulist]

Doubtful, but its not impossible. I say that because there are at least two possible paths to victory for Dean, and both seem unlikely.

The first is basically how Democrats would win statewide up until the mid 2000s: do well in rural ancestrally Democratic parts of Western Tennessee as well as Davidson and Shelby counties. The second is to run up the margins in the population centers (Shelby, Davidson, Hamilton, and Knox counties) and a few suburban counties (Rutherford, Montgomery, and Madison counties) while keeping margins in rural counties down.

Both of these scenarios are unlikely, because the rural counties have swung hard towards the GOP. The second path to victory also hasn't been tried yet.

[GlobeSoc]

Doubtful, but its not impossible. I say that because there are at least two possible paths to victory for Dean, and both seem unlikely.

The first is basically how Democrats would win statewide up until the mid 2000s: do well in rural ancestrally Democratic parts of Western Tennessee as well as Davidson and Shelby counties. The second is to run up the margins in the population centers (Shelby, Davidson, Hamilton, and Knox counties) and a few suburban counties (Rutherford, Montgomery, and Madison counties) while keeping margins in rural counties down.

Both of these scenarios are unlikely, because the rural counties have swung hard towards the GOP. The second path to victory also hasn't been tried yet.

Right now I'd say that the path would involve using local officials and activists to gin up anti-Trump and anti Republican sentiment in the suburbs and urban areas, whilst officially doing a Joe Manchin campaign tailored to rural areas.

[PragmaticPopulist]

Doubtful, but its not impossible. I say that because there are at least two possible paths to victory for Dean, and both seem unlikely.

The first is basically how Democrats would win statewide up until the mid 2000s: do well in rural ancestrally Democratic parts of Western Tennessee as well as Davidson and Shelby counties. The second is to run up the margins in the population centers (Shelby, Davidson, Hamilton, and Knox counties) and a few suburban counties (Rutherford, Montgomery, and Madison counties) while keeping margins in rural counties down.

Both of these scenarios are unlikely, because the rural counties have swung hard towards the GOP. The second path to victory also hasn't been tried yet.

Right now I'd say that the path would involve using local officials and activists to gin up anti-Trump and anti Republican sentiment in the suburbs and urban areas, whilst officially doing a Joe Manchin campaign tailored to rural areas.

And the Republican nominee would have to be bad, such as Diane Black.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

TN is out of reach for the Dems

[BuckeyeNut]

Can? Yes. Will? Almost certainly not.

[Lord Admirale]

I don't even think Al Gore could win Tennessee's governorship if he ran in 2018.

(I know he won't; I'm just being hypothetical)

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Just because Dean is a very solid candidate, and most of his opponents are nobodies, and these race are slightly less partisan, I rate this as Likely R. But, it's knocking on the door of Safe R, if this was predictit, I'd say about a 6 cent out of 100 cent wager is a fair number for Dean as of now. Definitely possible, but highly unlikely.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Doubtful, but its not impossible. I say that because there are at least two possible paths to victory for Dean, and both seem unlikely.

The first is basically how Democrats would win statewide up until the mid 2000s: do well in rural ancestrally Democratic parts of Western Tennessee as well as Davidson and Shelby counties. The second is to run up the margins in the population centers (Shelby, Davidson, Hamilton, and Knox counties) and a few suburban counties (Rutherford, Montgomery, and Madison counties) while keeping margins in rural counties down.

Both of these scenarios are unlikely, because the rural counties have swung hard towards the GOP. The second path to victory also hasn't been tried yet.

Right now I'd say that the path would involve using local officials and activists to gin up anti-Trump and anti Republican sentiment in the suburbs and urban areas, whilst officially doing a Joe Manchin campaign tailored to rural areas.

And the Republican nominee would have to be bad, such as Diane Black.

I don't think Black is a bad candidate.  Remember that Tennessee is, according to the ACU, the most conservative state in the nation.