Lamar Alexander
Here's our recap of Thursday night's primary action in Tennessee, with Daily Kos Elections' race ratings appended at the end of each summary:
• TN-Sen (R): In the second "veteran GOP incumbent posts weak-ass win over weak-ass challenger" scenario in a week, Sen. Lamar! Alexander fended off state Rep. Joe Carr by a 50-41 margin Thursday night. That follows Sen. Pat Roberts' soft victory in Kansas on Tuesday, but with slightly better candidates and/or smarter strategic thinking, tea partiers could have claimed two scalps this week. Don't worry, guys: You'll get another chance in SIX YEARS. (Safe R)
• TN-03 (R): Rep. Chuck Fleischmann barely survived a second challenge from Weston Wamp, the son of ex-Rep. Zach Wamp who finished third in the 2012 primary. This time, the race was a whole lot closer, with Fleischmann prevailing by a 51-49 margin. Wamp took a very different approach, reaching out to Democratic voters by portraying himself as a centrist (Tennessee has open primaries). It almost worked.
And had Wamp not secretly recorded a conversation with last cycle's runner up, Scottie Mayfield, in which he attempted to browbeat Mayfield into remaining neutral, he might have succeeded. (The ugly moment was later turned into a campaign ad.) Classy to the end, when Wamp called Fleischmann to concede, he accused the incumbent of deceiving voters, then hung up. Like father, like son. (Safe R)
• TN-04 (R): Left for dead by his own party and just about every political observer after his salacious "push mistress who was a patient to get an abortion" scandal, Rep. Scott DesJarlais staged an amazing comeback and is now clinging to (political) life. As of Friday afternoon, he leads state Sen. Jim Tracy by just 35 votes out of over 77,000 cast. Suffice it to say, it'll be a while before we know who actually won here, but the fact that DesJarlais even has this much of a chance is a remarkable testament to the ability of Republican primary voters to forgive even the most offensive behavior. (Safe R)
• TN-09 (D): Rep. Steve Cohen, a white man representing a majority-black district, had faced primary challenges from African-American opponents every cycle he's been in office, and he's always turned them back by an 80-20 margin. This year, though, he faced a more vigorous candidate in attorney Ricky Wilkins, and Cohen also found himself in the papers more than once for some odd (and revealing) tweets. Cohen still won by a 66-33 margin, but Wilkins' performance will likely only mean more challenges in the future. (Safe D)
• And in a rare piece of good news for Tennessee Democrats, three Democratic justices on the state Supreme Court all handily turned back efforts by conservatives to deny them another term on the bench. Tennessee is the only state in the nation where the Supreme Court appoints the state's attorney general, and Republicans would have taken control of the court with just a single victory, so this was a particularly big win for Democrats.