Pollster John McLaughlin Questions Validity of AFP TN-7 Poll Showing Four-Way Tie

Kaitlin Housler
Lee Reeves, Matt Van Epps, Gino Bulso, Jody Barrett

Pollster John McLaughlin is expressing doubts about the validity and methodology of a new poll released Tuesday by Americans for Prosperity (AFP) Foundation that shows a statistical four-way tie in the Republican primary for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District.

The AFP poll showed the GOP primary for the 7th District to be a statistical tie among the top four candidates— Tennessee State Reps. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood), Lee Reeves (R-Franklin) and Jody Barrett (R-Dickson), and former Lee administration official Matt Van Epps—with 57 percent of voters still undecided.

The poll found the four candidates separated by just 1 percentage point, with all falling within the survey’s 4.4 percent margin of error.

McLaughlin, who conducted a poll for candidate Lee Reeves’ campaign about a month ago, said his data showed Reeves leading the field by six points, with the highest name recognition and favorability ratings among GOP voters.

“Reeves was up six points over the field and since then, [Reeves campaign] has been doing a lot of mail, they’ve been on radio and running ads, and they have been canvassing. So you would only expect it to get better,” McLaughlin explained on Wednesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.

“In that poll…Reeves had the highest favorables, and he was the best known,” McLaughlin added.

McLaughlin sharply criticized the AFP poll, conducted by Spry Strategies, for relying on robocalls (IVR) and online surveys, which he argued are cheaper but far less accurate than live interviews.

“The poll was conducted by IVR and online…Now, we use live interviewers and then we use some text or web, but it’s mostly live interviewers, which makes it more expensive, but it’s a more accurate poll we find…The methodology, I’m sure, is very inexpensive for AFP to do it that way,” McLaughlin said.

He further questioned the poll’s assumption that 82 percent of registered voters would turn out for the October 7 special election, calling that figure unrealistically high given typical turnout patterns.

“Also…they had 82 percent [of respondents] saying they’d vote in the special election, which is high for if you’re just screening for registered voters,” he said.

Noting how his firm uses a more rigorous methodology—live interviewers, GOP primary voter lists, and turnout history—to ensure polling reflects actual voting behavior, McLaughlin said Reeves’ ground game, alignment with President Donald Trump on immigration and border issues, and increasing name ID make it unlikely his lead has diminished as shown in the AFP poll.

He argued that if Trump were to endorse Reeves, the race would effectively be over, given the president’s overwhelming popularity among Republican voters in the district.

“If President Trump were to endorse Reeves, this race would be over. President Trump is extremely popular – he is favorable among nine out of 10 primary voters. I’ve never seen anything like it,” McLaughlin said.

Moving forward, McLaughlin stressed GOP candidates running in the special election for the 7th District must focus on having “direct voter contact” as the October 7 primary nears.

“Most of this is direct voter contact because awareness of the election will go up, but it’s still a special election on October 7th. Who’s around on October 7th? Who’s going to be there when early voting starts? It’s a turnout battle, too, but at the same time, you really have to raise your favorables. You have to raise your platform, you have to have direct voter contact,” he said.

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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Lee Reeves” by Lee Reeves; “Matt Van Epps” by Matt Van Epps; “Gino Bulso” is by Gino Bulso; and “Jody Barrett” is by Jody Barrett. Background photo “US Capitol” is by Gage Skidmore CC2.0.

 

 

 

 

 

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