Fox News host Laura Ingraham mocked Taylor Swift after the candidate the singer backed in the Tennessee Senate race lost. 
 
 "Hey @taylorswift13, haters gonna hate. #shakeitoff," Ingraham tweeted, referring to one of Swift's top hits. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 Rep. Marsha Blackburn Marsha BlackburnTennessee New Members 2019 McConnell reelected as leader, Thune promoted to whip Rick Scott appears with GOP senators, ignores voter fraud question as recount continues MORE (R) beat out former Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) for Sen. Bob Corker Robert (Bob) Phillips CorkerGOP senators open door to tougher response on Saudi Arabia New book about White House stirs controversy GOP senator calls book labeling him among Trump's enemies 'pretty warped' MORE's (R-Tenn.) seat, likely destroying Democrats' chances of taking the Senate. 
 
 Swift posted Tuesday that she voted for Bredesen and endorsed him last month. It was a rare political stance for the singer. 
 
 "As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn," Swift wrote. 
 
 "I will be voting for Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper James (Jim) Hayes Shofner Cooper16 Dems sign letter opposing Pelosi as Speaker Divided Congress to clash over Space Force, nuclear arsenal Laura Ingraham mocks Taylor Swift after Blackburn victory: '#Shakeitoff' MORE for House of Representatives." ||||| Republican U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn campaigns Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018, at a cafe in Brentwood, Tenn. Blackburn is strongly embracing President Donald Trump as she claims the Republican nomination for... (Associated Press) 
 
 Republican U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn campaigns Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018, at a cafe in Brentwood, Tenn. Blackburn is strongly embracing President Donald Trump as she claims the Republican nomination for Tennessee's open U.S. Senate seat. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey) (Associated Press) 
 
 NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Former Tennessee Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen and Republican U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn are on a collision course to claim their own slices of history in a critical U.S. Senate race. 
 
 Blackburn, an ally of President Donald Trump, would break ground as the first woman Tennessee ever elected to the Senate. 
 
 Bredesen could breathe life into a depleted Democratic Party in Tennessee that hasn't won statewide in more than a decade — not since he did it himself in his 2006 re-election bid. It's been even longer for Tennessee Democrats to see success in Senate races. The last to win was former Vice President Al Gore in 1990. 
 
 Tennessee voted for Trump by 26 percentage points in 2016, but Bredesen's continued popularity and pledge of independent thinking has kept polls close in the contest to replace retiring Republican Sen. Bob Corker. The race could run up a record spending tab as Democrats hope to anchor their fight to steal the 51-49 Republican Senate majority on the red, southern state. 
 
 Blackburn and Bredesen have long run their race like their matchup was inevitable. Easy primary wins Thursday just made it official. 
 
 The Bredesen playbook has come into play in an open governor's race as well, where Democratic former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean has touted himself as a leader who can break down partisan barriers and work with a Republican legislature during divisive political times. He easily won a primary contest Thursday. 
 
 Dean faces businessman Bill Lee, who emerged from a bruising, $45 million-plus Republican primary as the race's only self-described "conservative outsider" and the candidate who most emphasized his Christian beliefs. The four leading candidates tapped into an unprecedented $40 million of their personal wealth. 
 
 The nominee from Franklin tried to avoid the fray and the $7 million he spent was a third of that of Randy Boyd, the second-place finisher. Lee declined to take overt swipes at his opponents while they savaged each other in attack ads, at times targeting him. 
 
 The race also included U.S. Rep. Diane Black, who began the campaign as the favorite and got the endorsement of Vice President Mike Pence but stumbled to a third-place finish. 
 
 In the Senate race, Bredesen is pledging to work across party lines, saying he will support Trump on policies that are good for the state, and oppose him when they aren't. 
 
 He thanked his supporters Thursday night and vowed to be "the best damn senator you ever sent up to Washington." 
 
 Blackburn has run in support of Trump's agenda, including his wall-building immigration crackdown and his U.S. Supreme Court pick, Brett Kavanaugh. 
 
 "We know what Tennesseans say that they want to see in their next senator is somebody who is going to stand with President Trump to finish the agenda that they voted for when they elected him and sent him to Washington," she told her supporters, some of whom were wearing "Marsha Marsha Marsha" T-shirts. 
 
 Bredesen and Dean would need to peel off support from moderate Republicans and independents in the red state. 
 
 Blackburn has billed herself as a "hardcore, card-carrying Tennessee conservative" from the outset of her campaign. She has benefited from center-stage appearances alongside Trump and Vice President Mike Pence in public events and fundraisers in Tennessee. 
 
 Pence and Trump have already attacked Bredesen, saying he's too liberal for Tennessee and would fall in line with Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. 
 
 Bredesen has countered that his record as governor shows he's an independent thinker who won't cave to party leaders. 
 
 Bredesen has separated himself from Trump on several policies, most notably on tariffs, which threaten an estimated $1.4 billion in Tennessee exports, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a longtime Republican ally. The exports are linked to more than 850,000 jobs in the state related to farming, steel, baked goods, car manufacturing, whiskey distillers like Jack Daniel's, and more, the chamber said. 
 
 Blackburn has tried to distance herself from the White House carefully on tariffs amid a heightening trade war. She asked the commerce secretary to reconsider broad tariffs to avoid harm to Tennessee's economy. She has expressed "grave concern" about the tariffs, but said she appreciates the administration's goal of punishing bad actors like China. 
 
 Blackburn has opposed Corker's proposal to require a congressional vote on tariffs issued in the name of national security, a move that fellow Tennessee GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander supports. 
 
 Tennessee has a history of electing centrist senators. Corker, for one, has further complicated the race by saying he's supporting Blackburn but won't actively campaign against Bredesen, whom he has called a friend. 
 
 Corker also has publicly tussled with Trump, once saying the president had turned the White House into an "adult day care center." Trump tweeted in response that Corker "couldn't get elected dog catcher in Tennessee," and Corker endured booing at a Trump-Blackburn rally in Nashville this spring. 
 
 Haslam, the popular two-term governor, threw his support behind Blackburn at a campaign event Thursday, telling her supporters that the race is about control of the Senate. 
 
 Heading into July, Blackburn maintained an early 2-to-1 cash advantage over Bredesen, with $7.3 million in her bank account. But Bredesen would be one of the wealthiest members of Congress if elected, and he has already loaned $3.5 million of his own money to his campaign. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Sheila Burke in Nashville contributed to this report. ||||| Republicans retained control of the Senate on Tuesday, ousting Democratic incumbents in Indiana and North Dakota and handing President Donald Trump a triumph by ensuring they will remain as guardians of his conservative agenda for two more years. 
 
 Despite Trump's deeply polarizing effect on voters, the GOP harnessed his rock-solid popularity with hard-right voters in rural, deep-red states. They held onto seats in the South, Midwest and West and ensured at least a 50-50 Senate — enough to give Republicans control because Vice President Mike Pence as president of the Senate would tip the balance to the GOP. 
 
 Republicans paved their path to victory by defeating Democrats Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. They also held on to competitive seats in Texas, where Sen. Ted Cruz fended off Rep. Beto O'Rourke, the well-financed liberal darling, and in Tennessee, where Rep. Marsha Blackburn prevailed. 
 
 The GOP Senate victory was magnified because Democrats stood a solid chance of wresting control of the House from Republicans. 
 
 That would give the Senate the role of blocking House-passed Democratic initiatives on everything from health care to the potential repeal of tax cuts on the wealthy that the GOP enacted last year. 
 
 It would also leave the Senate as the showcase for the GOP's goals of tax and spending cuts, trade, immigration restrictions, curbs on Obama's health care law and judicial nominations. 
 
 Republicans entered the night commanding the Senate only narrowly, 51-49. But a crucial piece of math was in their favor Tuesday: The Democrats and their two independent allies were defending 26 seats, Republicans just nine. 
 
 Blackburn, a conservative who is also an ardent Trump backer, defeated former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, 74. Bredesen had promised a bipartisan approach if elected and had won the endorsement of music star Taylor Swift. 
 
 Heitkamp lost to GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer, whom Trump persuaded to seek the Senate seat. Heitkamp was hurt late in her campaign by an ad that mistakenly named some women as victims of sexual abuse. 
 
 The night's news wasn't completely disastrous for Democrats. 
 
 Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin was re-elected in West Virginia, a state Trump captured by 42 percentage points in his 2016 election triumph. Democratic incumbents also prevailed in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Midwestern states that Trump carried narrowly two years ago. 
 
 Overall, Democrats were defending seats in 10 states that Trump took in 2016, including five he won by at least a huge 19 percentage points. Trump prevailed in Indiana by 19 points. 
 
 Tuesday's midterm elections were among the most bitter in years. 
 
 Democrats' longshot prospects for capturing a Senate majority were pinned on expectations that their supporters, roused by revulsion toward Trump, would surge to the polls. Fueling their intensity have been Trump's anti-immigration rhetoric and policies, his efforts to dismantle health care protections enacted under President Barack Obama and the #MeToo movement's fury over sexual harassment. 
 
 "Ever since President Trump has been in office, it has just been not the country that I am used to or that I thought I would be in," said Sarah Roth, 22, a Democratic voter from Minnetonka, Minnesota. "And so this really was my opportunity to help this country in changing who is making the decisions." 
 
 Democrats also had history on their side: 2002 was the only midterm election in the past three decades when the party holding the White House gained Senate seats. 
 
 Republicans were banking on those dynamics being offset by a vibrant economy and by a president whose insult-laden approach to political discourse was as stirring for conservative voters as it was infuriating to liberals. 
 
 Trump's racially tinged anti-immigrant rhetoric, while unpopular among college-educated urban and suburban voters, seemed helpful in deeply conservative areas. 
 
 "I believe he values immigration, but he wants to make sure we're safe," said Tina Newby of Wetland, Michigan, a GOP voter. "I like the fact that he is not a politician, and I forgive some of the socially incorrect or politically incorrect things that he says." 
 
 With so much at stake, Trump campaigned in over a dozen states with Senate elections since Labor Day, visiting some multiple times. He himself has characterized the election as a referendum on his presidency. 
 
 AP VoteCast, a national survey of the electorate conducted by The Associated Press, highlighted the effect Trump was having on voters. Nearly 4 in 10 said they were casting ballots to express opposition to him, while just 1 in 4 said their vote was an expression of support for the president. 
 
 In other results, Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and Democrats Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar were easily re-elected. Along with Sherrod Brown, a pro-labor lawmaker re-elected in Ohio, the four are considered potential 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls. 
 
 GOP hopes of gaining a seat from New Jersey were dashed when Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez won a third Senate term. Menendez won in the heavily Democratic state despite a federal bribery indictment that prosecutors dropped this year after a mistrial. 
 
 Also victorious was Republican Mitt Romney, the vanquished 2012 GOP presidential candidate who grabbed the Utah seat being vacated by the retiring GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch. Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine, his party's defeated 2016 vice presidential candidate, won re-election to the Senate. 
 
 Amid the recent rash of letter bombs and the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, Trump issued alarming and often unfounded warnings about caravans of migrants crossing Mexico toward the U.S., blaming Democrats, without evidence, for the threat he claimed they pose. 
 
 AP VoteCast is a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters and nonvoters conducted for the AP by NORC at the University of Chicago 
 
 ___ 
 
 AP reporters Jeff Baenen in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and John Flesher in Traverse City, Michigan, contributed.
– Taylor Swift came off the political bench last month to get behind the Democrat running for Senate in her home state of Tennessee, and with Phil Bredesen's loss Tuesday night to Marsha Blackburn there's no shortage of conservatives trolling Swift—and you'd be safe to cue a zillion references to bad blood. Chief among them was Fox commentator Laura Ingraham, reports the Hill, who tweeted "Hey @taylorswift13, haters gonna hate. #shakeitoff." It was a popular theme, notes the Tennessean, as former congressman Joe Walsh can't stop, won't stop urging Swift to "Shake it off, shake it off." Bredesen didn't seem to mind the pop star's thumbs up, fruitless though it may have been, tagging her in a tweet earlier Tuesday urging Tennesseans to vote.