Could Arkansas’ Former Governor Mike Beebe defeat Senator Boozman in the 2016 Senate Race?

As the tin says, if Beebe has entered the 2016 Senate Race against Boozman could he have won? He was fairly popular in Arkansas and won re-election in 2010 in an anti-Obama midterm year? I double his victory would have led to HRC winning the state though.
 
My impression is that by 2016 most red states had become firmly Republican in non-presidential as well as presidential elections--even when moderate and (at least formerly) popular Democrats were running. Note how the once-unbeatable Evan Bayh lost in Indiana. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Indiana,_2016 Yet Bayh would very likely have won re-election even as Republican a year as 2010: https://www.politico.com/story/2010/02/bayh-leads-coats-by-20-points-032844
 
My impression is that by 2016 most red states had become firmly Republican in non-presidential as well as presidential elections--even when moderate and (at least formerly) popular Democrats were running. Note how the once-unbeatable Evan Bayh lost in Indiana. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Indiana,_2016 Yet Bayh would very likely have won re-election even as Republican a year as 2010: https://www.politico.com/story/2010/02/bayh-leads-coats-by-20-points-032844

True but Beebe had just left office in January 2015 when he was term limited. There was talk of him running for the Presidential nomination in 2016 since Arkansas loved him that much but I think Senator would have been much more likely for higher office.
 
I live in Arkansas, personally know Governor Beebe as a mentor, and can assure you the answer is YES. Senator Boozman really won based on two reasons. There was a lot of sympathy for him. The woman he defeated initially in 2010 had beaten his beloved brother and former Surgeon General of the state, Dr. Faye Boozman in 1998. Faye had been tragically killed a few years earlier when a barn wall fell on him and crushed him to death. Boozman is not a very elegant speaker and is rather shy. He won a crowded field in 2010 mainly because the other candidates cancelled each other out and he seemed Senatorial. In 2016, Beebe would have had the financial special interests behind him. Also he has NEVER lost a race in his entire life. Furthermore, there would have been engineered more Congressional candidates then the one who ran in the 2nd, a good friend of mine, former LR School Board President Dianne Curry. But Curry's candidacy would have assisted Beebe by energizing the African-American vote. The fact that Beebe got rid of the grocery tax and greatly reduced the gasoline tax would have allowed him populist issues to run against Boozman. Finally, Beebe knows how to raise money. He raised $1 million in 2006 in 1 week from 10 donors to kick off his first Governor's race. Beebe would have beaten Boozman handily around 56%-44% and that's accounting for a heavy Republican swing.
 
My impression is that by 2016 most red states had become firmly Republican in non-presidential as well as presidential elections--even when moderate and (at least formerly) popular Democrats were running. Note how the once-unbeatable Evan Bayh lost in Indiana. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Indiana,_2016 Yet Bayh would very likely have won re-election even as Republican a year as 2010: https://www.politico.com/story/2010/02/bayh-leads-coats-by-20-points-032844

Evan Bayh initially held a large lead in the polls after he launched his 2016 Senate campaign. What sunk him was the revelation that he no longer lived in Indiana: he was listed as an inactive voter in the state, and he had listed his two multi-million-dollar homes in D.C. as his primary residences. When a reporter asked Bayh to give the address of his Indianapolis residence, he gave out the wrong address. There may have been other factors behind Bayh's defeat in that race, but his non-residency in Indiana - the state he wanted to represent again - was probably the biggest factor. Voters don't like it when their elected representatives don't live in the constituencies they're supposed to represent.
 
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