There’s a little less than a year until Election Day 2020, when Tennessee will choose a new U.S. senator. At this point in the last Senate race, Phil Bredesen, the ultimately unsuccessful Democratic nominee, hadn’t even started his campaign. This time around, the field is all but settled.

After multiple prominent Republicans decided not to seek retiring Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander’s seat, a handful of others hopped in the newly cleared lane. Among them are two clear front-runners, considering financial and institutional support: Manny Sethi, a Vanderbilt surgeon who hired some of the architects behind now-Gov. Bill Lee’s competitive primary win, and Bill Hagerty, a former ambassador and commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development who landed a presidential endorsement even before entering the race.

On the Democratic side, James Mackler is the only candidate showing signs of life. Mackler is a Nashville attorney and veteran who briefly ran last time around before bowing out to make way for Bredesen. Other Democrats, including Memphis environmentalist Marquita Bradshaw, have filed to run but have yet to raise money, put out ads or participate in the barrage of public and private events expected of a serious Senate candidate.

Though more formal debates are still months away, Sethi, Hagerty and Mackler appeared on the same stage late last week in Nashville, for one of the first of what are sure to be dozens of forums, luncheons and other joint appearances. The Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s annual public affairs conference found the candidates and their aides running into each other on the way in and out of City Winery, or while mulling in the back of the room awaiting their turn.

Mackler makes his pitch confidently, in the face of the long odds most observers grant any Democrat in the race. Bredesen got 44 percent of the vote against now-Sen. Marsha Blackburn in 2018, Mackler points out, so he needs to add six points on top of Bredesen’s foundation. He cites the trade war and bemoans “continued economic uncertainty.” He stresses his military service and later work for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, where he fought “companies that were putting profits ahead of people.” (A Sethi aide in the back of the room quips that perhaps Mackler should avoid such language when speaking to the chamber, some of whose members likely were on the receiving end of MSHA inquiries.)

Despite his efforts (and an ad in which he rides his motorcycle down Tennessee backroads), Mackler’s campaign has not attracted the viral attention of other Democratic candidates around the country.

“People don’t seem to know that there is an open U.S. Senate seat in Tennessee and a strong Democratic candidate running,” Mackler told the Scene back in October, after another local appearance. “Why they don’t know it, I think partly it’s the press not covering it, partly there are 20-some presidential candidates to pay attention to. There’s a lot competing for our attention. One task for me is to let people know that this is a winnable race.”

Sethi has a similarly tough task ahead of him, at least on paper. His main Republican opponent, Hagerty, has endorsements from Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and financial goodwill left over from his stints as a top fundraiser for Trump and Mitt Romney.

But it’s those connections that Sethi hopes to turn into liabilities. In a two-and-a-half minute conversation following his appearance onstage, Sethi uses Romney’s name five times.

“Their approach is more of a top-down structure,” he says, right after Hagerty and his team brush by, offering a cheerful greeting. “The president did endorse him, but I think in all fairness the president didn’t know who I was, even though we have met. With Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney and all these people pushing down on Tennesseans, I don’t think they want that. I think they want to make their own decision. … How do you square being in line with Mitt Romney and running in the conservative wing of the party?”

That leaves Hagerty running a front-runner’s race, rarely acknowledging the reality that he’s not yet a senator. He walks a fine line, as identified by Sethi — he’s both a wealthy businessman with strong ties to the kinds of people at the chamber event, and an unabashed Trump supporter who promises, before anything else, to support the president.

“I’m here to tell you today about why I’m running for U.S. Senate,” Hagerty tells the chamber crowd. “It’s really quite simple. I’m running to help President Trump extend the winning streak that he started for America. It began with deregulation, then a very significant tax bill came through that brought the nation’s tax rate from the most uncompetitive in the world to a very competitive level.”

Unbending support of the president from both Hagerty and Sethi simplifies things for Mackler — or another would-be Democratic nominee.

“It’s either somebody who has been handpicked to be a blank check for the president, or somebody who’s promised to be a blank check if they win the primary,” Mackler campaign manager Dave Hoffman said at the October event.

“They’re fighting to see who’s more supportive of the president right now,” Mackler added. “My message doesn’t change.”