U.S. Sen. Bob Corker speaks to small business owners, in this file photo, during an event to help small businesses grow their online presence. The event was held by Google at Miller Plaza in downtown Chattanooga in this file photo.Just 11 percent of those surveyed in the Middle Tennessee State University poll said Corker should run. Forty-one percent think he shouldn't. Another 46 percent, a plurality, said they were undecided and 2 percent wouldn't say.
Pollsters included Corker's name among a host of national would-be candidates. The poll, conducted Jan. 25-27 of adults ages 18 and older, had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.
"[C]onsidering that U.S. Sen. Bob Corker from Tennessee hasn't ruled out a run for the White House, we did want to ask Tennesseans whether they thought he should go for it," said Jason Reineke, associate director of the MTSU poll.
Reineke said Tennesseans "seem less than keen on potential presidential aspirations for Corker, though, despite his rising political profile in recent years thanks to bipartisan congressional efforts on fiscal issues and other matters."
If he runs, Corker, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, might want to consult with Democrat Al Gore. In 2000, then-Vice President Gore lost Tennessee to Republican George W. Bush by 51-47 percent, joining a select group of major party presidential nominees who lost their home states.
Had Gore won Tennessee, he would have been elected president and the recount mess in Florida would have been only a minor historical footnote.
In 1956, another Chattanoogan, then-U.S. Sen. Estes Kefauver, was Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson's running mate. They lost Tennessee to Republican President Dwight Eisenhower.