Black voters could have a major impact in the hard-fought U.S. Senate race in Kentucky, and both candidates are making direct appeals to them in dueling radio ads.
A new radio ad by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) features an African-American woman calling on Kentuckians to support the Republican incumbent because he “fights for our community and cares about us.”
“Alison Grimes won’t say she voted for President Obama, but I will,” says the narrator, Dr. Noelle Hunter from Morehead. “I voted for President Obama twice. So you might be surprised to hear that I’m also voting for Mitch McConnell. And I think you should too. … As an African-American, I know from person experience that Mitch fights for our community and cares about us.”
The ad takes a sharp turn when Hunter says her ex-husband kidnapped their daughter in 2011 and took to her to Africa, and that McConnell “knocked down barriers” and helped make sure “my baby came home safely.”
McConnell campaign spokeswoman Allison Moore said the ad will run on urban radio in response to an ad by Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes in which a narrator says McConnell “has been leading the Republican effort to take away our voting rights.”
On Tuesday, the Grimes campaign unveiled a new radio ad of their own, featuring Georgia Powers — a civil rights leader and the first woman and African-American elected to the Kentucky state senate — asking Kentuckians to support Grimes.
“Mitch McConnell and the Republicans are trying to take away our right to vote. That’s why our community and faith leaders are rallying behind Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes,” Powers says.
A Bluegrass Poll released Monday found that Grimes has an advantage with black voters: 60 percent of black likely voters intend to vote for her, while 22 percent intend to vote for McConnell.
“The McConnell campaign has zero ground organization in African American communities,” a Grimes campaign official said. “We are dominating.”
Two polls this week found that McConnell holds a slight edge but that the race is in a statistical dead heat.
Grimes bumper sticker:
Vote early
I hear Turtle snapping.
How any African-American (or any member of any other minority group) could possibly vote for a Republican, much less Mitch McConnell, is beyond me.
Are concerns about having your ex kidnap your children and take them to Africa a game changer in Kentucky?
If white conservative voters hear that ad, they might freak out that McConnell is making it easier to bring ebola to KY.
This is an ad run on both radio and TV. The TV version is literally the only positive ad McConnell is running. I’ve been extraordinarily confused by the ad. It features Dr. Hunter, a very attractive and seemingly kind-hearted woman, talking about how McConnell helped get her daughter back. It’s baffled me because I haven’t understood why McConnell’s investing in the black vote at all since he hasn’t pretended to care about us since he was County Judge Executive. The only conclusion I can draw is that he knows that minority voters are mostly women and is concerned about black women in Lou/Frank/Lex turning out in big numbers for Grimes.