TN-07: Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn's decision to run for the Senate opens up her 7th Congressional District, which includes Nashville's western suburbs as well as Clarksville. Trump won this seat 68-28, and it should stay red without much trouble.
Immediately after Blackburn made her announcement, state Sen. Mark Green jumped into the GOP primary, and he quickly received the endorsement of the anti-tax group the Club for Growth. Green has been looking for a promotion out of the state Senate all year. Green originally announced he was running for governor, but he dropped out after he was nominated to become secretary of the Army.
However, Green had a long history of disparaging Muslims and LGBT people. Last year, Green told a tea party event that he "will not tolerate" teaching the "pillars of Islam" in textbooks, and he told a man who raised fears of armed violence from people who "don’t belong here, like Muslims in the United States" that he'd asked a "great question." Green also sponsored legislation that would have allowed healthcare practitioners to refuse treatment to LGBT patients, and he pushed for a bill to force transgender students to use the school bathroom that matched their legal gender, explaining he had a responsibility to "crush evil."
Green withdrew his nomination to lead the Army in the face of too much Senate opposition. However, the whole experience seems to have only elevated Green's profile at home. Green was recruited by anti-establishment conservatives to challenge Sen. Bob Corker in the primary. Green originally said no but began to reconsider just before Corker decided to retire. Green's bigotry was too much to get him through the Senate, but it's probably too much to hope that it's too much for local GOP primary voters.
However, Green's primary opponents may not be any better. Just before Blackburn left, the Nashville Post wrote that there were rumors that party strategist Chip Saltsman, who is currently managing former state cabinet official Randy Boyd's campaign for governor, could run here. Saltsman has not said anything publicly, though Roll Call and Politico have also name-dropped him.
Saltsman, who served as an advisor to then-Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist, rose to prominence in 2008, when he ran Mike Huckabee's surprisingly-strong presidential campaign. After the election, Saltsman began running to lead the Republican National Committee, and he mailed RNC members a Christmas CD that featured a song called "Barack the Magic Negro." Saltsman defended the whole thing as innocent satire, but he dropped out of the contest a month later. Of course, since we're still talking about Saltsman almost nine years later, you know he was far from persona non grata with the GOP afterwards. In 2010, Saltsman helped Chuck Fleischmann pull off an upset primary win in an East Tennessee seat.