The New York Times has finalized its poll numbers in the Marsha Blackburn-Phil Bredesen Senate race, and the complete results are good news for Blackburn and bad news for Bredesen.
The Tennessee Star on Wednesday reported on an earlier snapshot of the poll, showing U.S. Representative Blackburn (R-TN-07) with a 57 percent to 39 percent lead over Democratic former Governor Bredesen.
The New York Times’ poll has been updated in real time to show Blackburn’s lead at 54 percent to 40 percent over Bredesen.
The newspaper’s poll information is here.
In September, the newspaper said it would use “live polling,” in which the results of polls in Battleground States could constantly change over a two-month period leading up to the election.
“For the first time, we’ll publish our poll results and display them in real time, from start to finish, respondent by respondent. No media organization has ever tried something like this, and we hope to set a new standard of transparency. You’ll see the poll results at the same time we do. You’ll see our exact assumptions about who will turn out, where we’re calling and whether someone is picking up. You’ll see what the results might have been had we made different choices.”
The poll is conducted by NYT Upshot / Siena College. There have been 593 interviews out of 28,670 calls.
The Cook Political Report calls this race a tossup between Blackburn and Bredesen. FiveThirtyEight, The Center for Politics, and Inside Elections, however, say it leans Republican, according to The Times’ website.
“Democrats were very pleased that Mr. Bredesen decided to run, and Republicans are worried that the race has seemed so close in a reliably Republican state,” The New York Times said.
The newspaper lauds Bredesen’s past “leadership roles” and says he is a moderate who brought the Titans to Nashville as mayor.
The newspaper mentions his statement of support of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court but fails to mention the former governor waited until the nomination was virtually secured.
The poll story also mentions Bredesen said of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, “I don’t even support him.” However, the story ignored that Politico said the pledge is “functionally useless,” as The Star previously reported.
“Ms. Blackburn has developed a reputation as a hard-right firebrand, and has tied herself closely to President Trump,” the newspaper said. “She signed onto a letter formally nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize for trying to end tensions on the Korean peninsula.”
Earlier in the week a CBS News poll said Blackburn leads Bredesen by eight points, or 50 percent to 42 percent.
CBS says that in this race and several others where Democrats hope to win upset Senate victories, they are “having at best mixed results so far.”
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Jason M. Reynolds has more than 20 years’ experience as a journalist at outlets of all sizes.
[…] New York Times earlier in October released the final results of a live poll that showed Blackburn at 54 percent to 40 percent over […]
If Bredesen was a Republican the Left would be calling him an old white privileged male. (the Left won’t attack their own)
I guess we can say 14% of folks didn’t watch the last debate. She showed zero policy ideas and just ignorantly repeated the same talking points. She mentioned Bredesen’s support for Clinton 14 times?!?