A new poll on The New York Times’ website shows Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn is ahead of her Democratic opponent Phil Bredesen by a comfortable margin of 18 points, 57 percent to 39 percent. This poll is a result of The Times calling 17,170 phones across all areas of Tennessee — Democrat, Republican, and undecided alike. Though The Times does not specify when the poll was conducted–an unusual omission among polling firms–it appears to be an ongoing poll with results of 17,170 calls made on Tuesday, October 9. Exactly 366 people have thus far answered, according to The Times’ website. The poll has a margin of error of 6 points. 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. To add context, The Times cited polls that nine other organizations recently did on the race. Those pollsters talked to people at different times, ranging between Aug. 9 of this year through the end of last week. Five of those nine organizations, including those who did the two most recent polls, have Blackburn ahead of Bredesen. An…
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