He defeated, among others, Nashville, Tennessee entrepreneur and attorney John Jay Hooker, then still considered to be a serious candidate due to his strong personality, his (intermittent) wealth, and his connections with The Tennessean's controlling Seigenthaler family.

[citation needed] Upon winning his party's Senate nomination, Sasser set out to attack the record of one-term incumbent Sen. Bill Brock, heir to a Chattanooga, Tennessee candy fortune.

[citation needed] Sasser turned back a serious effort against him by five-term United States House of Representatives member Robin Beard very handily in 1982.

That showing was so impressive that his 1988 Republican opponent was a virtual political unknown named Bill Andersen, whose underfunded, essentially token campaign never stood a chance.

[citation needed] Frist was a political unknown and a total novice (who never voted until he was 36)[6] at campaigning, but was from one of Nashville's most prominent and wealthiest medical families, which gave him name recognition, especially in the Nashville area, and resources adequate to match the campaign war chest built up by a typical three-term incumbent, a challenge most "insurgent" candidates find to be extremely difficult.

A further factor working to Frist's advantage was a simultaneous Republican campaign by actor and attorney Fred Thompson for the other Tennessee Senate seat, which was held to replace Al Gore, who had resigned in 1993 to become Vice President of the United States.

During the campaign Nashville radio stations were derisive towards Sasser to the point of stating that he could only win "a Kermit the Frog lookalike contest.

In 1993 he engineered passage of President Bill Clinton's first budget, which reduced the deficit by $500 billion over 10 years[7][8] but passed without any Republican votes.

When then-Senate Majority Leader Mitchell announced his intention to retire, Sasser was widely expected to be elected to the position, had he won a fourth term in the Senate.