NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Results from the NewsChannel 5 independent mayoral debate poll showed Barry has taken the lead.
Mayoral candidates Megan Barry and David Fox faced off in a debate last week at Vanderbilt University. NewsChannel 5 teamed up with Yacoubian Research to create the only independent poll in the mayor's race.
Polling opened nearly one week before the debate and closed the day after the debate.
Pre-debate polling showed Fox in the lead at 46% and Barry at 44%.
Post-debate numbers showed Barry in the lead at 56% and Fox sliding down to 39%.
With the pre and post-debate numbers together, Megan Barry leads David Fox 52% to 43%.
They also showed that Barry took the lead among women at 56% and non-white voters at 69%.
Fox won over the Republican vote at 65%, and Barry overwhelming won over Democrat voters with 81% of them saying they would vote for her.
NewsChannel 5 Political Analyst Pat Nolan says it is important to remember that this poll was conducted immediately following the NewsChannel 5 debate between Barry and Fox on Aug. 24, and may not reflect the current support.
"This is representative of a reaction to the debate not to how it’s going to turn out on election day," Nolan said.
Megan Barry's campaign, fresh off a new endorsement by former opponent Howard Gentry, welcomed the poll results.
Barry's campaign issued the following statement in response to the poll.
“This poll, coupled with Howard Gentry’s endorsement today, clearly shows that Megan Barry has a broad coalition of support within the community. Voters are rejecting David Fox’s negative attacks and are embracing Megan’s positive vision for how we can keep Nashville moving forward.”
David Fox's campaign encouraged its supporters to take part in the NewsChannel 5 poll when it was being conducted but blasted the results Monday. In a tweet the campaign called the poll "bogus" and "seriously flawed."
Fox campaign manager Chris Turner issued this statement to NewsChannel 5 regarding the poll:
"We appreciate our friends at NewsChannel5 for hosting the debate and asking viewers to weigh in.
But this poll is seriously flawed. And it definitely does not reflect the status of the race or even the trends we're seeing in early voting.
It's a week-old, online poll where people could pretend to be someone else and vote multiple times., so it's just not an accurate reflection of where things stand.
The Fox campaign's internal numbers show this race to be dead-even among those voters who have definitely decided and who are definitely going to vote.
So just like we predicted in the first election, the runoff election is going to be all about turnout and who is going to vote.
And we think the race is currently dead-even and is going to go right down to the wire."
The poll was conducted online and was voluntary, so by definition it cannot be scientific.
Yacoubian said by weighting the demographics of those who participated similarly to the Aug. 6 general election a reliable picture can be created.
To see the methodology behind how Yacoubian conducted the poll, click here.
