Joel Ebert | The Tennessean

Michael Schwab, The Tennessean

The Tennessean

A recently formed Democratic-aligned political action committee that poured millions into the Republican U.S. Senate primary election in West Virginia is weighing into Tennessee's statewide race.

Duty and Country PAC — a Washington, D.C.-based organization that favors Democrats — released a poll Thursday on Tennessee's U.S. Senate race, which found former Gov. Phil Bredesen with a 3 percentage point lead over U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn.

The poll found 44 percent of respondents said they favored Bredesen while 41 percent preferred Blackburn. Both candidates face nominal opposition in their respective primary races on Aug. 2. Early voting runs through July 28.

Fifteen percent of respondents were undecided on the race.

The poll, conducted by Public Policy Polling, also found respondents had a more negative view of Blackburn than positive.

Thirty-three percent of those surveyed had a positive view of Blackburn while 46 percent had a negative view.

Forty-two percent of respondents had a positive view of Bredesen, compared to the 37 percent of those who had a negative view.

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TN Senate race: Where Tennessee's Senate candidates stand on the key issues

Mike Plante, spokesman for Duty and Country, said the results of the latest poll are in line with other internal surveys the PAC has done regarding the race.

The fact that Duty and Country is weighing into Tennessee's U.S. Senate race underlines the national interest in the campaign, given Republicans' narrow edge in the upper chamber.

Tennessee, along with several other states, are considered toss ups and key battlegrounds for control of the U.S. Senate.

Earlier this year, Duty and Country spent $1.8 million on West Virginia's Republican primary Senate race. The PAC's treasurer — a former U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin in West Virginia — prosecuted former coal baron Don Blankenship, who faced two other candidates in that state's primary election and lost.

Blankenship spent a year in prison after being convicted of a workplace safety crime for his role in the 2010 explosion at a West Virginia mine that killed 29 miners. Goodwin, a Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for West Virginia governor in 2016, led the prosecution team against Blankenship.

Duty and Country's poll, conducted over a two-day period starting on July 10, surveyed 583 likely Tennessee voters. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

In March, Public Policy Polling surveyed 1,000 Tennesseans and found Bredesen was up 5 percentage points.

Other polls from earlier this year have found the race to be similarly tight, including a survey released in February from a Republican-aligned group that had Blackburn up by 5 percentage points.