Tennessee: An Obama state? One poll says "yes"

Election junkies, to say nothing of Team Obama, are trying to figure out how the President gets to 270 electoral votes next year. Probably next to nobody has figured Tennessee's 11 electoral votes into that calculus, given the double-digit drubbing John McCain laid on him in 2008.

But if this poll from the Volunteer State is to be believed, perhaps that might be an oversight:

Vanderbilt University for The Tennesseean. (6/3-6/8, Tennessee Voters, No trendlines)

Barack Obama (D) 37

Mitt Romney (R) 35 Barack Obama (D) 37

Tim Pawlenty (R) 28 Barack Obama (D) 38

Michele Bachmann (R) 27 Barack Obama (D) 38

Newt Gingrich (R) 26 Barack Obama (D) 43

Sarah Palin (R) 29



This poll will probably be viewed with some skepticism, and a cynical eye might be justified here. I'd love to see some duplicate work here before I buy stock in Vandy's work here.

After all, 2008 was hardly a splendid year for Democrats in Tennessee, a state President Obama lost by 15 points. 2010, meanwhile, was pretty much an unmitigated disaster as well, with the Democrats losing three House seats, and getting obliterated in a one-sided gubernatorial election.

Therefore, a poll showing a Democratic lead on the presidential election, a state that has not gone to the blue team since 1996, is a little hard to fathom.

As with pretty much every other GOP-run entity this year, the Republicans have been engaged in some pretty amazing levels of overreach. So, this could be the same kind of buyers' remorse we have seen across the country.

But reversing a double-digit defeat into a narrow lead? If it seems too good to be true, well...you know how that goes.

There are some legitimate causes for skepticism. For one thing, the "none of the above" vote here is almost absurdly high, with anywhere between 27-36% of the voters not picking a candidate. For an early poll in a House race, that would be totally believable. For a presidential race, that seems a bit excessive.

Also, it would seem that, given Tennessee's reddish tint and President Obama's middling national approval numbers, a 44/50 approval split for President Obama might be a few points too optimistic.

Having said that, however, it is worth noting that when our friends at PPP polled here in February, they found very similar numbers (42/52). They did, however, find Obama doing about 10 points worse than Vandy did in this particular survey.

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