Reasons For Hope - Ford Up in New Internal Poll; Early Voting Demographics

Despite being down in a few of the latest polls, Harold Ford Jr. is still very much in the thick of the Tennessee Senate race. In fact, Ford leads Bob Corker by six points in the latest DSCC poll.

Additionally, early voting in Tennessee is up 45% at this point compared to the last non-presidential election in 2002 (506,187 compared to 348,041).

And though the party affiliation breakdown for early voters is unavailable, the demographic detail breaks down like this:

Black: 47,180 (37.9 %)
White: 50,574 (40.6%)
Other: 26,730 (21.5 %)
Male: 51,001 (41.0%)
Female: 73,480 (59%)

To these eyes, the fact that 38% of early voters so far are African American (Ford's base), versus the 16% of the state's population that are African-American, bodes well for Ford.