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« Briley Q&A | Main | Wired Fires » October 25, 2007Lamar Leads Not-Ned-Ray, BigtimeThe City Paper's "Political Animals" blog reports on some interesting new polling numbers that suggest 2008 could be a very good year for Tennessee Republicans. Specifically, incumbent U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander has a commanding lead in his re-elect race over likely Democratic challenger Mike McWherter, a West Tennessee beer distributor and son of former Gov. Ned Ray McWherter. In the poll by Ayres, McHenry Associates, Alexander leads Mike McWherter by a whopping 60-29 margin, with 11 percent undecided. McWherter suffers from poor name recognition of 26 percent with Tennessee voters. Geographically, McWherter is known to 32 percent of West Tennessee voters, 30 percent of Middle Tennesseans, and just 19 percent name recognition in East Tennessee.Clearly, Mike is not Ned Ray - even his famous last name isn't helping him much as most Tennesseans hearing his name aren't confusing him with his famous father. Alexander leads Not-Ned-Ray in all three of the state's grand divisions, 45 to 41 in the West - where a Democrat must win big to have a chance statewide, 60 to 27 in Middle, and 70 to 22 in the East. Even if all of the independent votes in the East went to McWherter, the pollsters conclude that at this stage in the race, "that lead in the East would translate into an advantage of more than 300,000 votes."One more obstacle facing Not Ned: Alexander has a 68 percent approval rating for his time in the Senate, with Democrats approving 46 percent to 35 percent. Now, let's turn to the poll's presidential numbers. If the presidential race is between Republican Fred Thompson and Democrat Hillary Clinton, Fred would easily take Tennessee, leading right now in that hypothetical match-up by 13 points, 53 to 40 percent. However, national front-runner Rudy Giuliani only leads Clinton in Tennessee 46 percent to 44 percent - suggesting strongly that if Giuliani is the GOP's nominee, Tennessee is in play. Ask Al Gore what winning Tennessee in 2000 rather than losing it would have done to his career path. Meanwhile, Tennesseans still view President Bush more favorably than they do Hillary Clinton. Bush has a 48 to 47 percent favorable to unfavorable while Clinton has a 44 to 48 percent favorable to unfavorable rating. Tennessee is still a red state. Posted in Campaign Season
Comments
Lovely attempt at a pre-emptive strike, Mr. Flack-Elect. Mike hasn't announced whether he's running (and he needs to make his mind up YESTERDAY), and he needs to be out there NOW if he's going to do this. Of course LAMAR! has more name recognition; he's only been going before the voters of the state for 33 years now. No one at this point has a clue who Mike is other than being Ned Ray's son, and he's going to have to prove that he's more than just that. LAMAR! has lots of advantages, name recognition and Tom Ingram being the most noted. However, Brother Hobbs, are you not surprised that the fund-raiser at Brad Martin's house only garnered $600K with a Presidential visit? I thought the Prez never went anywhere unless a million bucks was ready to be gathered. Posted by: LeftWingCracker at October 25, 2007 3:28 PM"No one at this point has a clue who Mike is other than being Ned Ray's son." Actually, what the polls show is that very few people even connect "Mike McWherter" with "Ned Ray McWherter" at all. He's not getting a big boost from his famous name. Remember, Ned Ray hasn't been governor for a dozen years. Lots of folks moved here since then and don't have a clue who Ned Ray is. Posted by: Bill Hobbs at October 25, 2007 4:11 PMIf Alexander does not start getting a more serious attitude about immigration, he could throw the whole lead in the dumpster. I did not like the Amnesty Light Health Care cloture vote and he had to be shown the stick to move in the right direction of the previous Amnesty Bill. My Democrat congressman represents me better on immigration than Senator Alexander. Posted by: Danny L. Newton at October 26, 2007 7:21 PMPost a comment
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