Reviving this thread with additional commentary because apparently some of y’all didn’t do enough self-reflection after the August Primary. Here are the questions people SHOULD be asking: (Thread) https://twitter.com/indivisibletenn/status/1291732652022812673

First, a bit of background on the 2020 Tennessee race for the United States Senate. Because you need to have historical context to make accurate judgments.

In September of 2017 Sen. Bob Corker announced his retirement from the Senate. This retirement was due in part to pressure from Indivisibles in East Tennessee who were holding him accountable for his complicity with the Trump administration.

This announcement set off a frenzy among both parties. Phil Bredesen was courted personally by Chuck Schumer to run for the open seat. One might think this was a solid strategy. Bredesen was a popular moderate Dem who won the governor’s seat twice.

What Chuck Schumer, along with the rest of the DNC, failed to take into consideration was the rise in popularity of the Tea Party Movement in Tennessee. The Tennessee Bredesen carried in 2006 was not the Tennessee he ran his 2018 U.S. Senate bid in.

Prior to Corker’s announcement there was a Dem candidate already in the running, James Mackler. A week after Bredesen joined the race Mackler dropped out. Why didn’t the DNC and TNDP have a primary? There was an opportunity to generate interest in a competitive federal race.

The competition in the 2018 Senate race, Marsha Blackburn. Marsha, a GOP darling who missed 16% of her votes in the ‘17-‘18 U.S. House session, is a diehard Trump supporter. Her race was funded by organizations like the NRA and Core Civic.

Initially considered one of the most competitive Senate races, things quickly went downhill. First, Bredesen’s campaign had little interest in working with grassroots groups in Tennessee.

Next, you had his record on health care. Bredesen drastically cut TennCare while governor and Tennesseans, who at this point had lost close to a dozen rural hospitals, hadn’t forgotten.

The final death knell of his race was the announcement that he would have supported Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. Bredesen lost big.

There were some successes from the 2018 cycle though. The Tennessee Black Voter Project turned in 91k voter registrations.

In a state ranked 49th in voter registration you would think this would be welcome news. You would be wrong. The existing system in Tennessee was functioning as designed - to suppress the vote. As a result of surge in new forms, Mark Goins.

This legislation, which was eagerly taken up by the Republican Supermajority in the Tennessee Legislature, promoted penalties for groups doing legislation. Including fines of up to $10k per county.

The day now disgraced former Speaker of the Tennessee House Glen Casada brought this voter suppression bill to the floor, the gallery was full of grassroots Tennessee groups opposing the legislation including Indivisible.

Fmr. Speaker Casada kept pushing the vote back hoping the protesters would get tired and clear out. Democracy truly dies in the dark. When there were no signs of us letting up they finally held the vote. After they passed the bill, members of the house cheered.

Thankfully groups like the ACLU of Tennessee challenged the measure, which successfully repealed in April of this year.

When Lamar Alexander announced his retirement from the Senate in December of 2018, we knew we had to spring into action. We knew we were going to do everything in our power to prevent Marsha 2.0.

Mackler had already been working on his second senate bid. We were there and willing to help. In late 2019, we reached out directly to his campaign offering to help GOTV across Tennessee. While initially receptive, they never took us up on our offer.

That October, Marquita Bradshaw announced her candidacy. Mackler’s reaction to the announcement was less than stellar. To outsiders, a primary is just another step in the democratic process. In Tennessee, it’s met with fear.

We immediately reached out to Marquita’s campaign. We were met with open arms. When asked to meet with a group of Indivisibles in Knoxville, she and her son drove from Memphis through a snowstorm on the plateau to speak with them.

To many Tennesseans, Marquita seemingly came out of nowhere. To groups involved in the labor and environmental movements, she was a familiar face. She was well known in Memphis where she fought alongside her mother against a government-owned superfund site.

Indivisible Tennessee is not a single group. It’s an organization of smaller groups across the state.

Because the stakes were so high with the primary, some groups were hesitant to endorse any single candidate in fear of hurting another candidate if the endorsed candidate didn’t make it to the general. So we worked to promote the contenders as equally as possible.

This is why our endorsement came after the primary.

Our original plan to do a statewide tour was hampered by the pandemic. We had to do something else to get the word out. In June, we held the first digital democratic primary issue forum along with the Tennessee Holler, moderated by Stephen Elliot of the Nashville Scene.

Leading up to the forum we had issues getting Mackler to commit. On the forum, participants seemed to be the most drawn to Marquita and another late entrant to the race, Robin Kimbrough Hayes. While they were quick give their stances on issues, Mackler talked in circles.

It was hard to know where he stood on issues. While Bradshaw and Kimbrough-Hayes made it easy to find their platforms, the policy web page for Mackler was blank.

As a Progressive Tennessean, one of the ways you cope with constant election disappointment is to be reserved.

There were many conversations between Indivisibles about our enthusiasm for Bradshaw and Kimbrough-Hayes. But Mackler had the blessing of the establishment, had been vocal in the mainstream for several years, and had a huge war chest.

The night of the election, we were elated by Bradshaw’s win. This was a historic win. Not only had she secured a win, but Mackler, the DSCC candidate, came in a distant third.

Immediately after the election, the backlash started. Which led to this initial thread. Marquita’s win was discounted. Even though she had won by a large margin the establishment wasn’t as supportive of her race like they were of races like Amy McGrath’s.

Mackler spent millions, was backed by establishment groups, openly campaigned over almost two years, and still came in third. In contrast, Bradshaw spent $20k, had only announced 10 months earlier, and had a small staff. He didn’t lose because of the alphabet.

Now, after Marquita, a first time candidate who had little to know prior name recognition managed to get 35% of the vote against a well funded Trump-supporting GOP candidate, who is a former ambassador, she is being used as an excuse for the shortcomings of others.

STOP SHITTING ON BLACK WOMEN’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS!

Here are some questions people need to be asking:

Tennessee was admitted to the union in 1796. Why did it take 224 years for the FIRST Black woman to be nominated as a U.S. Senate Candidate in a major political party? Slavery ended in 1865 and it still took another 155 years. This is unacceptable.

Why are people slamming Marquita for refusing to concede until all the votes had been counted, yet ignoring Hagerty’s refusal to debate her or spotlighting his racism by his refusal to pronounce her name correctly?

Where is the accountability for TNDP leadership? They admittedly have no plan, no strategy, and don’t reflect the diversity of their electorship.

Why are members of the democratic establishment constantly dunking on Southern States as the problem while offering no solutions or resources to fix it?

Why is no one holding Chuck Schumer and other DNC party leadership for burning through a billion dollars on candidates not supported by local voters yet failing to spend money on year round voter outreach programs?

Why is the majority of TNDP messaging about fundraising while they are silent on issues and policy?

Why in a state where the per capita income is around $28k per year is the party not campaigning on raising the minimum wage?

Why is a state with the highest number of hospital closures per capita, #1 in medical debt, prescription drug prices and deaths from lack of insurance is the party not pushing Medicare for All?

Marquita supported popular progressive policies including Medicare For All, The Green New Deal, public ed, a living wage and workers rights, justice reform, common sense gun laws, overturning Citizens United, and DACA.

As a single mom, taking care of an elderly relative, in an under-resourced community her life is representative of a large majority of Tennesseans.

She had every structural barrier placed in front of her and still managed to pull off an upset with minimal help from the party, yet people want to scapegoat her as the reason why the GOP won the race.