NASHVILLE (AP) — Two presidential polls of Tennessee voters released this week show Republican Donald Trump with a comfortable lead over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
In the poll released by Vanderbilt University on Thursday, Trump leads Clinton by 11 percentage points. About three in four of Trump's supporters in the poll describe themselves as "angry," while two-thirds of Clinton's supporters consider themselves content.
Trump had the support of about half of the voters in rural and suburban areas, where Clinton had 23 percent and 29 percent respectively. But in urban areas, Clinton had about 49 percent support, compared with 27 percent for Trump.
Republican political operative Ward Baker said one surprising result of the Vanderbilt poll was that 47 percent of Clinton voters said they were very enthusiastic about their choice compared with 41 percent for Trump supporters.
Those results show that down-ticket GOP campaigns "can't just count on Trump enthusiasm to turn out votes for them," Baker said in an email. "All campaigns should run a data driven turnout program, focusing on soft Republicans."
A poll released by Middle Tennessee University earlier in the week had Trump leading Clinton by 12 percentage points. The MTSU survey found that 56 percent of white voters support Trump, while 23 percent favor Clinton. Meanwhile, 65 percent of minorities surveyed in the poll support Clinton, while 9 percent support Trump.
According to the MTSU poll, Trump has a 51 percent to 27 percent lead among male voters, while also holding a 41 percent to 36 percent edge among women.
And the Republican has the support of 52 percent of voters who identify as evangelical or "born again," compared with Clinton's 27 percent. Among the voters who do not consider themselves evangelical, Clinton had 45 percent compared with 27 percent for Trump.
The margin of error in both polls is about plus or minus 4 percentage points.