General Discussion

It is never really possible to know where the path not taken would have led. The question is not generic progressive vs generic moderate. The question is would any person who could have run done better.

What seems clear is than TN Democrats ran a candidate who ran an excellent race. At least from what was seen from a distance, she was smart and personable and was able to reach many people on a one to one basis. Given the results, she won over many people who usually would have voted Republican.

This was against a Republican who, while supporting Trump's agenda, had a background that included West Point, the military, and public service jobs. He, as an outsider himself, said he made affordability as an issue.

The Democratic nominee was the winner in a crowded field. Rather than Kornackie's observation that her shift was smaller and IMPLICITLY postulating that, all things being equal, there is some underlying shift that is constant across the country, I would be more impressed by some local analysis that argued that some specific candidate would have gotten all the votes she did and would have moved a percentage of some specific group who voted Republican.

A local analysis is very unlikely to happen. There are no exit polls on something like this and there will be no polls now that ask people who they would have voted for between a specific Democratic alternative and Van Epps as well as who they had preferred in the election.

One thing I hate about Kornacki's simplistic analysis is that it hits a candidate who ran a good race and gave her all and the local party that supported her. It ignores the real complexity of an election that depends on everything from who BOTH candidates are, the resources behind each, the strength of the local outreach GOTV, the media which almost everywhere leans right, and the voters in the district. Here, the district was gerrymandered to be very Republican as they split up Nashville.