Poll: GOP’s Blackburn holds slim lead in Tennessee Senate race

The Tennessee Senate race between Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R) and former Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) is nearly a dead heat just under three weeks from the 2018 midterms.

Blackburn has a narrow 3-point lead over Bredesen in the race to fill the seat of retiring GOP Sen. Bob Corker, according to a new poll released Wednesday by Reuters.

{mosads}The Reuters/Ipsos/University of Virginia poll found Blackburn holding a 47 percent to 44 percent edge among likely voters, just ahead of the poll’s 2.5 point margin of error, meaning the race is practically tied.

This comes off a recent Fox News Poll that showed Blackburn with a 5-point lead.

Democrats see the state as a prime opportunity to pick up a seat in their bid to take back the upper chamber in the midterms.

The Democrats need to pick up two seats to flip the Senate, but they face a tough map where they are defending 10 seats in states that were won by President Trump in 2016. 

Blackburn has tied herself closely to Trump, who held a rally for her earlier this month.

Bredesen has maintained a centrist stance and is one of few Democrats to publicly say he would have voted for the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

Tennessee has not elected a Democratic senator since 1990.

A RealClearPolitics average of polls shows Blackburn with a 5.5 point lead.

“It’s become such a Republican state,” University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato told Reuters. “It’s so difficult to, for any Democrat to put together a majority statewide.”

The poll surveyed 1,108 likely voters between Oct. 4 and 11.