How Corker again decided he would retire
WASHINGTON — The campaign to persuade Bob Corker to stay in the U.S. Senate started in December. By midFebruary, it had kicked into high gear.
Panicked by a poll showing the seat could go to the Democrats, Republican insiders in Washington and across Tennessee set out to change Corker’s mind about retirement. They called, emailed, texted and spoke to the senator in person to urge him to run for a third term.
Corker listened and, privately, began to sort through his feelings and look at his options. He talked to longtime aides, political strategists, his fellow senators, White House officials and even President Donald Trump, with whom he had feuded publicly just a few months earlier. Last Sunday, he made up his mind: His decision to retire would stand.
“The senator believes he made the right decision in September and will be leaving the Senate when his term expires at the end of 2018,” Corker’s chief of staff, Todd Womack, announced two days later.
The behind-the-scenes account of how Corker reaffirmed that decision and how the campaign of the other leading Republican for the nomination, Marsha Blackburn, acted to keep him out of the race is based on a dozen interviews with GOP insiders and political operatives in Washington and Tennessee.
Most would not allow their names to be used so they could speak freely about the senator’s deliberations and their private discussions with him.
Last December, less than three months after Corker announced he would not seek re-election, some of his fellow Republicans in the Senate approached the Tennessean and encouraged him to change his mind.
Some worried about the political implications of his retirement. Polls suggest an anti-GOP wave could be coming in November’s elections, and with a narrow 51-47 majority in the Senate, Republicans need to hang on to every seat they can.
Without Corker in the race, they feared what had been a reliably Republican seat could possibly fall into the hands of Democrats, putting their majority at risk.
For others, the concerns over Corker’s departure were policy driven.
The former Chattanooga mayor has traveled extensively overseas and developed an expansive foreign policy portfolio through his work on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
He has served on the committee since he came to the Senate more than 11 years ago and has chaired the panel the past three years. His retirement, those Republican senators feared, would leave a void on the international relations front at a time of heightened tensions with Russia and North Korea.
By February, worries that Corker’s seat could slip from the GOP intensified. Democrats had all but cleared the field for their candidate of choice, Phil Bredesen, a former two-term governor who had proven a moderate Democrat could win in a red state like Tennessee.
Adding to the GOP angst: A poll conducted by Glen Bolger of Public Opinion Strategies, a prominent Republican pollster, showed Bredesen beating Blackburn, the GOP front-runner, by two points.
“That sparked a lot of concern among some people about keeping the seat Republican,” said Tom Ingram, a veteran political operative in Tennessee who worked as an adviser on Corker’s first Senate campaign. “At that point, a number of people started talking to each other about, would Corker reconsider?”
One by one, they reached out to the senator and urged him to take another look at the race. He agreed to do so but wanted to keep his deliberations private. That proved impossible when somebody leaked the poll results to Politico, and CNN got word Corker was having second thoughts about retiring.
Suddenly, the will-he-or-won-’the-run narrative was back in the national news.
Some believed the poll would result in an upswing in support for Corker’s candidacy. But behind the scenes, Blackburn’s campaign began to flex its political muscles.
After initially remaining quiet about the poll, on Feb. 13 campaign spokeswoman Andrea Bozek said, “Anyone who thinks Marsha Blackburn can’t win in a general election is just a plain sexist pig.”
For Corker, reconsidering retirement left him in an extremely awkward position.
Three other candidates — Blackburn, Bredesen and former Republican U.S. Rep. Stephen Fincher — had all jumped into the race after Corker announced his pending retirement in September. None of them would have run if Corker had sought a third term.
Fincher’s campaign had heard directly from Corker’s team that the senator was reconsidering retirement. Likewise, there was some discussion in the lead-up to the former congressman’s decision to drop out of the race — but insiders deny there was any coordination.
Instead, Fincher’s decision to halt his bid came as he assessed the state of the race.
The campaign was ecstatic about his fundraising totals when he raised $1.4 million in 70 days, only to be discouraged by Blackburn’s $2 million haul.
When he launched his campaign, the West Tennessean was lagging behind Blackburn, according to polls. By the time he dropped out, Blackburn had a 50-point advantage, other surveys indicated.
The change in polling was multifaceted. As Fincher’s campaign opted for a scaled-back effort while collecting money, Blackburn launched a media blitz on social media and radio, rolled out a series of endorsements, attended a Nashville event with the president and made appearances on national television.
“Stephen recognized it would be an extraordinary uphill climb given all the circumstances,” said Joe Hall, who consulted Fincher’s campaign.
Faced with that reality, Fincher ultimately halted his campaign on Feb. 16.
Blackburn’s camp moved quickly. The campaign began to secure endorsements from state senators, eventually netting backing from 19 of the chamber’s 27 Republicans. While there was always a plan to roll out the endorsements at some point, the latest news about Corker accelerated the timeline.
There was a similar effort to net endorsements from state House Republicans and even several current U.S. senators.
As Blackburn’s campaign ramped up its efforts, several polls indicated she had a 2-1 advantage over Corker.
“We take our campaign a day at a time and every day is Election Day, and that’s how we go about it,” said Ward Baker, a senior adviser with the campaign who previously served as executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Meanwhile, as Corker reconsidered his options, one of the things that weighed heavily on him was the prospect of having to explain his return to the race to Blackburn and Bredesen, with both of whom he is on friendly terms.
Another factor he had to consider: What changed to cause him to get back into the race?
When he announced in September that he would not seek reelection, Corker said he’d always considered himself a citizenlegislator and never intended to serve more than two terms. He still believed in the citizenlegislator model, so how could he justify running again?
Regardless, Corker continued to listen to those encouraging him to run and discussed the race with others. He talked briefly about it with Vice President Mike Pence and continued his discussions with other Republican senators, including fellow Tennessean Lamar Alexander. Alexander, who is close to Corker, served as an important sounding board but did not try to sway him one way or the other.
At the White House, Corker broached the subject with Trump, with whom he had feuded publicly last fall. Trump remains popular in Tennessee, and if Corker was going to run, he needed to know that the president would not stand in his way.
Corker and Trump had already made amends, but not everybody at the White House was ready to forget the past. Corker’s pointed comments last fall — he declared Trump “an utterly untruthful president” and warned he was setting the country on the path to World War III — still angered some of Trump’s staff.
It was no secret that inside 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the senator still had his critics, and they made their views known to others, according to two administration officials.
Blackburn, meanwhile, has been a close ally of Trump and was seen entering and leaving the White House multiple times after the news leaked that Corker might get back into the race, raising speculation Trump would publicly endorse her candidacy.
But after a White House policy meeting with first daughter Ivanka Trump, Corker walked across the hall to see Trump’s economic adviser, Gary Cohn, whom he has known for years.
Cohn offered, without prompting, that the White House would remain neutral if Corker decided to run. Two other administration officials also confirmed Trump would not endorse Blackburn and planned to stay neutral if Corker ran.
Last Saturday, with the decision still weighing on his mind, Corker attended the Shelby County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner. The senator was received warmly and, again, was encouraged by several party insiders to get into the race.
The Shelby County event came one day after speculation swirled that Corker would appear at a similar GOP event in Blackburn’s home district in Williamson County. Although he did not appear at the Williamson County dinner, Blackburn’s team had a heavy presence, handing out campaign material in advance of her keynote speech.
On Sunday, back home in Chattanooga, Corker thought through his options. Though he felt like he could win, he worried that a primary race against Blackburn would be nasty and, in the end, one that he would not be proud to have run.
When he factored that in with his other concerns about reentering the race, Corker made up his mind. He would retire, as planned. But before announcing his decision, he wanted to sleep on it first.
At the same time, back in Washington, Gov. Bill Haslam faced continued questions about Corker’s decision.
“Every other question somebody asked me from literally the president down was, ‘What’s Corker going to do?’” said Haslam, who was in Washington for the National Governors Association meetings.
Haslam, who is among those in Corker’s inner circle, said when he was at a black-tie dinner with the governors on Sunday, Trump’s first question was if he knew what the senator was going to do.
“I said I didn’t,” Haslam said. On Monday, Corker remained convinced he’d made the right call and asked his chief of staff to make the announcement the next day.
Once the statement hit the news, Corker texted both Blackburn and Bredesen to let them know it was true: He would not be getting back into the race.
“I think for Bob it came down to a mix of a personal decision and a judgment about whether Washington is the best place to use his gifts and talents going forward, combined with some frustration around the current environment in Washington,” Haslam said.
“In the end, obviously, I think he made the decision that he thinks is best for himself.”