Author

Bruce Dobie

Bruce Dobie

Bruce Dobie is the founder and CEO of Power Poll. Power Poll surveys influential and powerful people in 20 ciites across the United States. Its results afford a fascinating glimpse into what’s in the minds of those who run our cities, states and nation.

COMMENTARY
U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper waits to speak to the Tennessee General Assembly's Ad Hoc Committee on Redistricting in October. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Commentary: The Power Poll – A peek at 2022 (and beyond)

By: - December 27, 2021

The Nashville economy will continue its thundering roar into 2022 and advance upon its explosive growth in prior years, according to the December Nashville Power Poll. Members were also asked whether it would be a good or bad thing if Facebook were to open up a massive headquarters here, as is being rumored. A majority […]

COMMENTARY
Gov. Bill Lee with Republican legislative leadership after a recent press conference. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Statewide Power Poll: Majority strongly oppose recent special session COVID bills

By: - November 19, 2021

The Tennessee General Assembly’s recent special session on COVID-19, which dramatically lowered the state’s COVID-19 response on everything from masks to vaccines, was met with big blowback in a statewide Power Poll. More than two-thirds of the voting Power Poll members in Knoxville, Memphis, Chattanooga, and Nashville, as well as the state’s rural and suburban […]

Tennessee State Capitol (Photograph: John Partipilo)

Commentary: Power Poll members say U.S. is in decline

By: - August 27, 2021

In one of the more downbeat and depressed projections made in the history of Power Poll, a plurality of members participating in our statewide August survey say the nation overall is “declining.” Approximately 10 percent went so far as to say the declines were so precipitous that the American success story is over and done […]

COMMENTARY
Attorney James Blumstein provides legal advice to the Davidson County Election Commission at its meeting on Monday, May 10 in Nashville. (Photo by John Partipilo.)

Nashville Power Poll: Power poll respondents strongly oppose tax reduction referendums

By: - July 2, 2021

Nashville Power Poll members are overwhelmingly opposed to rolling back the city’s recent property tax hike. They also oppose amending the Metro Charter in a host of other areas, such as requiring elections if taxes are increased by more than 3%. Requiring such referendums would significantly weaken the mayor, and Metro Council, and turn us […]

Bachelorettes in Nashville's downtown Broadway entertainment district. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Power Poll: No statue for Dolly, bachelorettes are lucrative irritant

By: - April 23, 2021

NO BIG STATUE FOR DOLLY Power Poll members don’t want a statue of Dolly Parton on the grounds of the state Capitol (as some legislators have suggested). BACHELORETTES: DRINK LESS, SPEND MORE While Power-Pollers aren’t crazy about Nashville as the weekly home for Bachelorette Bacchanalia, they do want the economic impact bachelorette parties bring. AND […]

COMMENTARY
Agent in Charge Doug Korneski, Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake and U.S. Attorney for the Middle district of Tennessee Don Cochran gave updates on Friday's RV bombing on Second Avenue in Downtown Nashville. (Photo: Ray Di Pietro)

Nashville Power Poll: The chattering class assesses Mayor John Cooper, former Mayor Barry and redistricting

By: - March 19, 2021

Nashville Power Poll members are giving Mayor John Cooper some mediocre grades. Depending on how you look at it, he comes out with a B- or C+. Passable. But nothing to write home about. Meanwhile, former Mayor Megan Barry, who as we all know left office in a cloud of chaos three years ago, is […]

Gov. Bill Lee addressing legislator's during the January 2021 special education session. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Power Poll Statewide: We Should Be Spending Money, Not Putting It In Rainy Day Fund

By: - February 19, 2021

A statewide Tennessee Power Poll shows respondents want our state government to spend more money helping people hard hit by the economy and COVID-19 and whatever else is descending on us these days. Many fewer are in favor of the governor’s proposal to set aside $50 million in these troubled times for our “rainy day […]

WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 05: Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) holds a mask to her face as she arrives for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on "Oversight of the Crossfire Hurricane Investigation" on Capitol Hill on August 5, 2020 in Washington, DC. Crossfire Hurricane was an FBI counterintelligence investigation relating to contacts between Russian officials and associates of Donald Trump. (Photo by Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images)

Power Poll Prediction: Hagerty & Blackburn Will Not Vote to Convict Trump

By: - January 22, 2021

Our pro-Trump senators in Washington D.C. will not vote to convict former President Donald Trump in his likely impeachment trial, according to the most recent Nashville Power Poll. The margins of this prediction were astronomical. As to whether the Senate overall will vote to impeach Trump, Power Poll members predicted the Senate would not. Our […]

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 09: Senator-elect Bill Hagerty (R-TN) meets with the media on November 9, 2020 in Washington, DC. The Senate is reconvening for the first time after the 2020 presidential election and a coronavirus relief package is high on their list of priorities. (Photo by Stefani Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)

Tennessee’s U.S. Senators hit hard in Nashville Power Poll

By: - January 7, 2021

Tennessee’s two U.S. senators, Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, were harshly judged in a snap Nashville Power Poll for their decisions—which each later reversed—to challenge Joe Biden’s election as president. Nearly nine in 10 respondents rated the duo’s actions as “extremely poor.” A snap Power Poll was emailed to members late Wednesday afternoon and closed […]