Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes holds a slim lead over Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), according to a new poll.
A Magellan Strategies poll released Thursday found Grimes leading McConnell 49 percent to 46 percent in the 2014 race. Five percent of respondents were undecided.
The poll also found that 58 percent of respondents would be more likely to oppose a candidate for U.S. Senate that supports the Obama administration’s new carbon emission regulations, which seek to reduce emissions by 30 percent from existing power plants by 2030.
Grimes has distanced herself from the President on coal and released a statement promising to “fiercely oppose” those new carbon emission regulations. She has also made a point of criticizing McConnell for not doing enough to protect Kentucky coal jobs.
The poll was conducted June 4-5 using automated interviews among likely general election voters in Kentucky. Forty percent of respondents identified as registered Republican voters, while 56 percent identified as registered Democrats. It had a margin of error of 3.45 percentage points.
Another Dem from a coal state who will caucus with the Republicans on environmental issues. Not helpful.
First Cantor now Mitch. Clearly Republicans are #winning.
Oh please oh please oh please oh please.
I don’t even care what her positions are. Just beat McConnell.
This is a Republican pollster by the way so maybe the beltway hacks like Stu Rothenberg can start paying attention and stop acting like McConnell has this locked up.
Oh, come on. No Democrat will ever be elected from a coal state by supporting CO2 emission standards. Never, ever, ever. It doesn’t matter that coal provides only a tiny percentage of jobs in coal states due to mechanization and strip mining. It doesn’t matter that coal provides a declining share of the state’s tax revenue. It doesn’t matter that coal use is receding because natural gas is now cheaper per btu. It will be a full freaking generation before any of that makes any difference to coal state voters. That’s just how it is.
So your choice is a Democrat who keeps the Senate in Democratic control or a Republican who will vote the wrong way on everything and throws it to Republican control.
The up side is that being against CO2 and further stack emission regulations doesn’t mean you’re automatically against things like higher milage standards, clean water rules, hazardous substance control, or endangered species regulations. A thing that does make you against all of those things is being a Republican.