NASHVILLE – Dueling Democratic and Republican polls paint two early and opposing pictures of the landscape in Tennessee’s fledgling 2018 U.S. Senate race.
An October poll commissioned by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee before former Gov. Phil Bredesen’s formal entry into the race found the Nashville Democrat led U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., by 46 percent to 41 percent among likely voters.
Thirteen percent of the 601 registered voters surveyed were undecided, according to the poll, conducted by Democratic polling firm Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.1 percent.
Meanwhile, a pro-President Donald Trump political action committee, the Committee to Defend the President, commissioned its own poll this month after Bredesen, a former Nashville mayor, formally declared.
Forty-three percent of the 500 respondents said they supported Blackburn, who is from Brentwood, versus 34 percent who backed Bredesen, The Tennessean newspaper reported earlier this week.