Diane Black Getting Nervous

It appears that Republican State Senator Diane Black is feeling the heat from her Democratic challenger Jim Hawkins, so much so that she is counting on John McCain turning out voters to help her win.

The election was going to be close, but Black had an ally on her side that helped push her over the top — George W. Bush.

Bush won Black’s district with 62 percent of the vote. Black, aided by a stronger-than-normal performance in Robertson County, defeated Graves by 2,602 votes for a Senate seat that drew more than 82,000 voters.

“When we looked back and we re-evaluated everything, I don’t know that the coattails made me win,” Black said of the 2004 race. “It may have brought out more Republican voters and helped push me over the top.”

It certainly is questionable as to whether or not Republican turnout will increase over 2004 numbers. While I think McCain is likely to win the state, that could be because of Tennessee Democrats and Independents switching over to vote for the Senator from Arizona - people who would likely vote Democrat on the state and local level. While William H. Hobbs tries to play up the fact that Obama didn't win Tennessee, neither did McCain, and Obama had nearly 75K more votes statewide than McCain, and 3K more votes in Rutherford County.

The evidence of her nervousness about retaining her seat is also evidenced by the fact that she wrote her campaign a $40,000 check out of the Senate Republican Caucus coffers so that she could maintain parity with Jim Hawkin's 86K raised primarily through individual contributions.