The Blue Wave Stopped Just Short of Crashing on Marsha Blackburn

Would I have liked to see Tennessee swept away in the blue wave? Sure. Did I almost have a stroke when I checked the Nashville Banner’s election night coverage early on and saw Democrats leading in every race they were tracking? I sure did. Am I bummed Democrats didn’t pick up more wins in Tennessee? Of course.

But y’all, the second-best thing happened! Tennessee Republicans won, but barely.

The person this is the worst for is, of course, U.S. Sen. (and Gov.-Elect) Marsha Blackburn. She ran on a platform of “I’ll carry out Trump’s agenda in Tennessee (and I will crush the cookies of my enemies).” And it turns out a lot of Tennessee voters hate Trump’s agenda. She didn’t even get 50 percent of the vote in the governor's race.

Outgoing Gov. Bill Lee won his last election with 65 percent of the vote. Two out of three voters in the state voted for him. Blackburn got 45.5 percent of the vote. By my math, this means she got only 70 percent of voters you can normally count on to vote for a Republican for governor. There are going to be 96 Republicans in the Tennessee General Assembly in next year's session. Statistically, chances are nearly 30 of them didn’t vote for her.

In the history of our state, have we ever had a lame-duck governor-elect before? I would never have believed that a first-term governor could enter office as a lame duck, but by God, that seems to be where Blackburn is.

The Quiet Race to Be Blackburn’s Senate Replacement

Republicans are discussing the top candidates vying to replace the governor-elect in D.C. through 2028

The funniest part so far has been watching people throwing around names for who Blackburn should appoint to her old Senate seat. Rumors have swirled through her whole campaign that she’s lost a step or two, and that’s why she doesn’t have public events. If you’re looking to project that you’re cognizant and competent, you don’t need people claiming that sentient goober pea Tim Burchett or racist Pete Hegseth are reasonable choices to replace you. Literally the only Republican option from the bunch who makes sense is Glenn Jacobs, and the longer it takes her to settle on him, the more it looks like her political acumen is failing.

There is another route she could take, though. She has the chance to do something hilarious and awesome.

Follow me here. Brent Taylor will no longer serve in the state Senate, since he’s now been elected to U.S. Congress. This is great for everyone in the General Assembly who hates him, because he’s out of their hair and is D.C.’s problem now. However, they’re still stuck with Democratic state Rep. Justin Pearson, who narrowly lost to Taylor, and who is a known pain in the butt and thorn in the side of state Republicans.

If Blackburn wants even a moment of respite from the constituencies who voted against her, she needs to make some grand gesture. I suggest — and I’m only half-kidding — that she send Justin Pearson to the U.S. Senate.

It would immediately give her a clean break (well, somewhat clean break) from her past speaking to racist Proud Boys. It would give her some measure of good will among Black voters. It would remove a vexing foil for state Republicans, including her. It would give her some distance from Trump and let her say that she’s going to act in the best interests of Tennessee, not in the best interests of D.C. And who could argue against that? It would signal that she knows that a U.S. senator needs to be energetic, dogged and determined to act in constituents’ best interest, like Pearson does, and — more importantly — like she would be doing. Plus, it would be one for the history books: Tennessee’s first female governor appoints Tennessee’s first Black senator.

It would be chaos, but it would be chaos she was in charge of — as opposed to now, when she seems to be floundering in it. If Blackburn wants to prove that she can’t be pushed around, she should do something no one expects or has even considered: send Pearson to be her replacement.