As Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Corker and his Democratic opponent Harold Ford, Jr. round up their last-minute votes, you can bet that while they "glad-hand" and "kiss babies," their staffs are poring over the statewide early vote numbers.
According to statistics published by the Tennessee Division of Elections, a new state record was set, with 49 percent more people voting in the midterms than did in 2002.
In what should be sobering news to the Corker campaign -- and to media outlets that have published polls giving Corker anywhere from an 8- to 10-point lead -- Shelby County's early vote was up by 80 percent. That is Memphis, folks. It's Ford's home county, the county Democrats rely upon.
While all concede that Corker has run a much better campaign in October than he did in August or September, and that he has gained momentum, his campaign and supporters have no cause for premature celebration.
On the flip side, early vote numbers that can seem promising for Ford should be taken with a grain of salt. Anything can happen in a voting booth.
However, the one area on which NashvillePost.com will go out on a limb is that when other media outlets proclaim huge leads in a race that is seeing record turnouts, they are not paying close enough attention to survey methodology. We hope to provide our readers with a sense of what it is that the politicos are really sweating over.
Recent polls that conducted independently from political campaigns generally rely upon "push-button polling," meaning that the surveyer asks a question and the respondent presses "1" or "2" on the telephone to provide an answer. These polls also use phone lists that have been gathered up by the phone company, as well as people who have signed up on the pollster's website saying that they are willing to take part in surveys.
When political campaigns conduct polls for their own internal use, they do things quite differently. Their polling data is compiled by using live operators and what is called a "voter file." The voter file is a public record anyone can get that tells the pollster how frequent a voter you are. These polls are generally more accurate.
For example, if you voted in the past four Republican primaries, you are considered a GOP "supervoter" and are less likely to get a survey call and more likely to get a call making sure that you voted. Same goes for Democratic households. If you have voted "split tickets" in the last few primaries, odds are you will get a genuine survey call.
Regular media polls don't use this methodology because it is more labor-intensive and more expensive, and in normal election cycles their numbers aren't usually off by much. But "push-button" polling generally hits the same targeted voters over and over, and it does not take into account the odd years, like this one, when the electorate is motivated and turning out in record numbers.
Thus we at NashvillePost.com are hestitant to believe some recent media polls when we see Memphis voting at a rate 80 percent above average. More people in Memphis voted early this time than did in 2000, when Al Gore was on the ballot for president.
Some politicos have argued that the electorate is more willing to vote early now than before because the "message has sunk in" that it will be easier and save them time. That argument could be justified if the rise in early vote participation was incremental, but not when the state is up 47 percent in turnout.
One last point on this subject, and this is the chilling realization for GOP operatives: The combined total of Hamilton, Knox, Sullivan, and Washington counties, all expected to vote Republican, barely surpasses the 142,235 number put up by Democratic Shelby County alone.
This race will be close.
And if you need any more proof than that, check out the new political mailer produced by "Common Sense Ohio" that is hitting Tennessee mailboxes this weekend. Yup, these are the same folks that were responsible for the "push poll" last weekend that was first reported by NashvillePost.com and then picked up by numerous blogs across the country.
We can't help but wonder if our friends to the North would have put out, in their home state, a mail piece whose headline proclaims that the African-American GOP candidate and the white Dem candidate "are separated by more than their school colors.” Common Sense Ohio was formed to benefit African-American candidate Ken Blackwell, a Republican, in his race for Governor of that state.
If Corker really was up by 8 to 10 points, it is doubtful that independent groups would be dumping inflammatory missives into Tennessee mailboxes, or that Corker would put $2 million of his own money into his campaign during its final week.
NashvillePost.com does not make endorsements for any political candidates. We believe that you the voter can decide without our help, a media poll, or out-of-state political mailers. Bob Corker and Harold Ford Jr. are both fine men who can do Tennessee proud.
Please, if you haven't already voted, vote on Tuesday. All elections are important.
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