Corker supporter
Ford supporter
Posted on 11/02/2006 10:39:28 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
In the hotly contested contest for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker has jumped into a double-digit lead over Rep. Harold Ford Jr., according to a Zogby poll.
The race had been a statistical tie in a number of recent polls, but Corker’s 10-point lead in the new Zogby survey follows several gaffes by Ford, including an attempt to confront Corker at a press conference and an attack on the religious values of Republicans.
As Of Monday, Corker led by 53 percent to Ford's 43 percent in the Reuters/Zogby survey of 603 likely voters statewide, conducted Oct. 24-31.The margin of error was plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
Just a week ago the race was considered a toss-up, according to a Mason-Dixon Tennessee Poll that showed that Corker was moving ahead. That poll, conducted Oct. 18-20, showed Corker with 45 percent and Ford with 43 percent -- a dead heat given the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Three weeks before that, a Mason-Dixon Tennessee Poll showed Ford leading Corker, 43 percent to 42 percent.
The contest has attracted national attention because Democrats need to win the election if they have any hope of picking up the six Senate seats required to win a majority.
"Tennessee and Virginia are going to be the two states that, right now, are going to control the outcome in the Senate. If the Republicans can win both, they'll have a 50-50 tie and Vice President [Dick] Cheney breaks the tie. But if they lose one or the other, it looks like chances are pretty good they'll lose control of the Senate," J. Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, told Knoxville.com.
"It's still a close race in Tennessee, still within the margin for error. One big 'X factor' is the racial component: Typically in Southern states when a black Democrat takes on a white Republican in a major statewide race, the undecided white vote tends to break strongly for the white Republican candidate. But it's been a number of years (since the last serious black candidacy in the South) and attitudes may have changed.
"Until Harold Ford Jr. is running over 50 percent in the polls, I don't think he can sleep," Coker said.
The poll was finished the day before the GOP began running a controversial ad statewide attacking Ford on several fronts and including a blonde woman inviting Ford to "call me." That same day Ford confronted Corker outside a Memphis press conference that Corker had called and video of their chilly face-to-face was aired across the nation through the weekend, according to Knoxville.com.
"With this race this close, that could well prove to be a turning point, although at this point I'm not sure who it will favor," Middle Tennessee State University political scientist John Vile told the web site. "This could well be a race that is won by the side that does the best job of getting its voters to the polls."
Stop the complacency and GO VOTE!
I will volunteer to call voters in TN although I live in CA!!
Whose complacent? I agree - GET OUT AND VOTE!!!
At least something positive is happening...
Corker won. It is over. Now if we could get Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Missouri over to our side that would be helpful.
No doubt we should. But, you did not get the memo of complacency and turnout in TN?
I'm hoping this will be the case in many other races, also. I've never trusted polls, and in this election, the media bias is more blatant than ever, and that's saying something.
Christian news and commentary at: sacredscoop.com ...
Is this guy saying that he believes that Lieberman is going to lose? I can't get behind a pollster who can't do basic math or call a lead pipe cinch.
The real bigots are the elitist leftwingers who think any American in 'heartland America' is an uneducated inbred racist 'hick'. I'm guessing they are 0 for 4 with you. :-)
Cheers.
Great news about Corker, I'm just hoping the other races have moved up too. (dont want to look at polls, my nerves are shot over them!)
Corker supporter
Ford supporter
I saw Ford on Hannity and Colmes last night and Colmes was interviewing Ford as though he was a Republican, he hit him on abortion, religion and something else, and then asked him if he was going to caucus with the Democrats if he won. Ford didn't back down, but said yes, he would always be a Democrat. So, maybe the angry left won't be voting in that race.
"God is a democrat" won't fly in Tennessee
Neither will "Kerry apologized - Rush didn't - Let's move on...." (an outright lie about Kerry)
Arrogance on his face and in his voice on H&C
Watch the pollsters suddenly "discover" that Republicans are "surging" as we close on the elections and they realize their fake polls didn't work to get Democrats elected, so they have to tell the truth to save their reputations.
bump
Zogby says Corker is winning? Uh-oh . . . That's sort of like having Dick Morris predict you will win. I hope Zogby is actually right for once.
Is that intended to be a serious analysis? Evidently, Mr. Coker believes that (1) the Dems will hold NJ and MD (which could happen--but is far from guaranteed); (2) that the Dems will score pickups in PA, OH, and RI (which seems like a reasonable projection); and (3) that the Dems will also engineer takeaways in MO and MT.
It is that last part that leaves me a bit bewildered. One does not need to be a cheerleader for the GOP to observe that it seems a bit premature to assume a victory for McCaskill in MO; every serious analyst I have seen puts this one squarely in the tossup category.
As for MT, Burns is clearly not the most eloquent speaker ever to come down the pike--and his former ties to Jack Abrahamoff have certainly been of no help--but the momentum does appear to be going Burns' way. This is likely to be the upset of the evening in the Senate. At the very least, the race is highly competitive; yet Mr. Coker seems to have decided that Tester's triumph is a foregone conclusion.
Perhaps Mr. Coker has simply bought into the "Democratic tsunami" narrative. That is the only explanation I can come up with for his numbers.
No, he is saying that Lieberman, who will be elected as an Independent, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who will be elected as a Socialist, will both caucus with the Democrats. Because they will.
No doubt we should. But, you did not get the memo of complacency and turnout in TN?
Darn. I should listen to MSM more often. lol.
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