Trump stumps for Tennessee candidate
Seeking to help GOP maintain its majority
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — President Donald Trump on Tuesday resumed his efforts to build a stable of Republicans who will promote his agenda and serve as a check on Democrats aiming to regain control of the House or Senate — if not both.
Trump traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, to raise campaign cash for Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican who’s running for a Senate seat, and to headline a rally with his most loyal supporters.
Trump said, “We need Marsha in the Senate to continue the amazing progress and work” of his first 16 months in office. “To keep on winning, you have to vote Republican in November.”
Blackburn is expected to face Democratic former Gov. Phil Bredesen to replace Republican Sen. Bob Corker, who is retiring. The Tennessee campaign is among several races crucial to Trump’s plans to maintain control of the Senate, where Republicans are defending a narrow two-seat majority.
Trump criticized Bredesen for being backed by national Democrats, including the Senate and House leaders.
“He’s a tool of Chuck Schumer and, of course, the MS-13 lover Nancy Pelosi,” Trump said.
Trump plans a series of political rallies and events in the coming months to boost Republicans and brand Democrats as obstructionists to his agenda. The president held a similar rally in Indiana this month, appearing with Republican businessman Mike Braun and ripping Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly as a “swamp person” who refused to aid the GOP agenda.
The president is raising money later in the week in Texas to benefit Senate Republicans and his 2020 re-election campaign.
Blackburn, who served on Trump’s transition team, has embraced the president and called herself a “hard-core, card-carrying Tennessee conservative.”
Bredesen, who is attempting to become the first Democrat to win a Senate campaign in Tennessee since Al Gore in 1990, has aired TV ads in which he says that he’s “not running against Donald Trump” and that he learned long ago to “separate the message from the messenger.”