Early voting in the midterms got underway last week.And you can tell the candidates are running all out by the ads on tv and social media at virtually every turn.
In Tennessee, most eyes are on the top of the ticket, the governor’s race.
Republican nominee Marsha Blackburn, a sitting U.S. Senator, is the favorite. Democratic nominee Jerri Green, a city councilwoman from Memphis and Independents David Hatley, a businessman from Johnson City and Lauren Pinkston, a former college professor from Columbia, are in the hunt, all taking shots at Blackburn.
The senator, who has the endorsement of President Trump, was up by about 10 points in the last poll we saw, but that was a month ago.
In mid-September, a TargetSmart poll of 6-hundred likely voters had Blackburn with 45 percent, Green 36, Hatley 10 and Pinkston 2 percent with 7 percent undecided.
That poll was sponsored by The Progress Fund affiliated with Jerri Green.
So what’s happening right now?
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It’s hard to say because it has been radio silence from the campaigns on the polling front of late.
“The lack of public polling that’s being dispensed by either Ward Baker or Marcia’s team or any of the other candidates, even groups supporting Marsha aren’t putting out polls because I suspect that her numbers are below the 45 points that she was pushing out a month or so ago,” said Steve Gill, a Nashville attorney and longtime conservative commentator.
Gill, who is also publisher of Tristardaily.com, a conservative online news site, says the Hatley campaign recently shared the results of its internal polling.
“They have seen him move from 10, 15 to, they say, 20 to 21 percent. That’s with the hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars in attack ads,” Gill said.
