drawn by jobs created under the conservative economic policies they oppose.
on to prove himself, like so many tea party favorites in the early part of this decade, a comically inept candidate. (Remember Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell, who lost an easy race despite announcing, “I’m not a witch.”) Not even the Hoosier state’s deep reservoirs of Republican sentiment could save Mourdock. And Mr. Donnelly went to Washington. There, to everyone’s surprise, he earned lots of goodwill with the folks back home. Donnelly has bucked his party leadership and even sided with Trump on key votes on immigration and regulatory rollbacks. He started the summer with a healthy lead over his opponent, a businessman named Mike Braun, but the race has since tightened. If Braun passes Donnelly and pulls ahead, it will suggest that the rumors of a wave have been greatly exaggerated. HOUSE RACES TO WATCH Twenty-five congressional districts represented by Republicans voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and only 13 districts held by Democrats went for Trump. The realclearpolitics.com average of national generic polls – asking voters whether they are more likely to vote for an unnamed Republican or Democrat – gave the Democrats an edge of 8 points at the end of September. Combined with the drag of Trump’s unpopularity, that’s a big enough spread to strike terror into the heart of any swing district Republican.
Tennessee Republican Bob Corker, who declined to run for a third term, exemplifies a moderate conservatism that has been popular in Tennessee at least since the days of the legendary Howard Baker. Lamar Alexander, Corker’s partner in the Senate, is in the same mold. Marsha Blackburn is not. Blackburn, who has represented central Tennessee in Congress for 15 years, won a contentious GOP primary this summer to face the former governor Phil Bredesen, a mild-mannered Democrat, for Corker’s seat. Blackburn’s more robust and ideological conservatism may be a better fit for Tennessee in the age of Trump, who carried the state by 26 points two years ago. That’s why polls showing a dead heat deep into September has Republicans worried about a race they should win easily. But Bredesen, at 74, is the strongest candidate the Democrats could hope to run this year. If you see Bredesen pulling ahead in the polls as November approaches, reach for the floaties. A wave is on the way. Indiana In a state Trump carried by nearly 20 points, Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly looks like a fluke. And he is. Long-serving establishment Republican Richard Lugar lost the 2012 GOP primary to a tea party candidate, Richard Mourdock, who went
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