Party pins hopes on ex-governor Phil Bredesen, who has narrow lead in recent poll but faces tough odds in Trump-friendly state

The slim Democratic hopes for winning a majority in the US Senate may rest on the shoulders of a septuagenarian white man from Nashville, Tennessee.

Phil Bredesen, the popular former two-term governor of Tennessee, has a narrow lead in the most recent poll against the Republican congresswoman Marsha Blackburn in one of the few opportunities that Democrats have to gain a Senate seat in 2018.

The moderate is downplaying national issues and trying to run on a campaign more focused on burnishing his bipartisan credentials and his career in public office. He is also helped by Blackburn’s unpopularity with establishment Republicans in the state who have long looked askance at the bomb-throwing conservative. The result has given Democrats an opening to win the seat currently held by the incumbent Republican Bob Corker.

However, Bredesen is not just running against Blackburn. Instead, he has to overcome the specter of Donald Trump in a red state that the president won by 26 points in 2016.

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In the first debate of the campaign on Tuesday. Blackburn seemed unable to finish a sentence without linking her opponent to Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama while he tried to separate himself from party politics almost entirely.

The hour-long debate at a liberal arts college 30 miles outside Nashville represented a microcosm of the challenges for red state Democrats even in a favorable national political environment. Bredesen tried to tiptoe around divisive issues and avoid strong criticism of Trump. In the midst of the drama surrounding the confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh for the supreme court, the Democrat said that the behavior of both parties on Capitol Hill “disgusts me” and declined to take a position on Kavanaugh’s nomination.

Bredesen also became the second Democratic candidate for Senate to refuse to support Chuck Schumer for Democratic leader in Senate, taking a page from dozens of House candidates who have declined to support Nancy Pelosi.

In contrast, Blackburn wholeheartedly endorsed every policy proposal backed by Trump, ranging from the big-ticket items like building a wall on the US-Mexico border to presidential hobbyhorses like ending the diversity visa lottery. She pledged her support for “draining the swamp” and kept repeating that Bredesen was “bought and paid for by Chuck Schumer”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marsha Blackburn offered strong support for Trump’s policies at the debate. Photograph: Mark Humphrey/AP

The race has drawn significant national attention as Democratic chances of winning the two seats needed to regain the majority have grown. Chris Cox, a top NRA official, was at the debate with the Blackburn campaign and Trump is scheduled to appear in the state again next week.

Republicans are hoping to make voters more focused on their disdain for national Democrats than their nostalgia for Bredesen, who won every county in the state in his 2006 re-election. Blackburn’s latest ad harps on this message. It features people who say they voted for Bredesen in the past but can’t abide someone who “gave Crooked Hillary tons of money”.

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In contrast, Bredesen has focused on his bipartisan bona fides. One ad begins with him looking at the camera and insisting: “Look, I’m not running against Donald Trump, I’m running for a Senate seat to represent the people of Tennessee.” Another features Republican supporters of the Democrat noting that “sometimes … he doesn’t make everybody in his party happy”.

In a state like Tennessee where Democrats have been relegated to the status of permanent minority in recent years, Bredesen doesn’t need to thrill the Democratic activist base. Motivated by opposition to Trump and the prospect of electing a Democratic senator for the first time in a quarter-century, they showed up cheering for him at a pre-debate rally that featured a high school marching band playing the song Africa by Toto and loud chants of “Bredesen, Bredesen”.

Instead, the ex-governor has to win over independents and moderate Republicans by bemoaning “hardcore partisan politics” and presenting himself as a problem solver.

But even with a polling lead, winning a statewide election in Tennessee is a tough problem for a Democrat to solve.