Bluegrass Poll: Grimes Takes Narrow Lead Over McConnell

U.S. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes gave her victory speech at her primary election night celebration at the Carrick House in Lexington, Ky., on Tuesday, May 20, 2014. (AP Photo/The Lexington Herald-Leader, Pablo Alcala)
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Democrat Alison Lunderdan Grimes has moved narrowly ahead of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in the closely watched Kentucky Senate contest, according to a new Bluegrass Poll.

She leads McConnell by 46 to 44 percent with likely voters, the poll found.

That gap is within the survey’s margin of error, but it’s welcome news for Grimes after a series of polls showed McConnell with a consistent lead over his Democratic rival. According to the Bluegrass Poll, it’s a 6-point shift in the direction of Grimes since late August.

“After fourteen straight public polls all showing Sen. McConnell with a clear lead, this Bluegrass Poll is obviously an outlier. We’re very comfortable with where this race stands and are confident Sen. McConnell will be re-elected in November,” Allison Moore, a McConnell spokeswoman, said in an email.

The poll found libertarian candidate David Patterson winning 3 percent of likely voters. Seven percent had not decided.

The poll was conducted by SurveyUSA on behalf of the Lexington Herald-Leader, Courier-Journal, Louisville-based WHAS-TV and Lexington-based WKYT-TV.

This article has been updated.

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Notable Replies

  1. Maybe if she would stop being so cautious, she might actually have a chance to win.

  2. Or maybe if “progressives” would quit second guessing her every move and actually support her, she’d win. It’s always been the professional left and far left snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, which allows Republicans to win.

  3. BAM. This is good timing. Big Dog needs to go back. KY folks: who else can rep national Dems in KY w/out agitating the wingnut racists anti-BHO base?

  4. Would that it was that simple. What neither the Kossites demanding a fire and brimstone Trumanesque campaign of hell-giving in every state nor the Beltway Campaign Consulatantocracy recommending the content-free eggshell walk in every race seem to get is that every race is difference. Some would do better to do it one way, some the other and whichever one is right always seems to be the one the Democrat in the race doesn’t do. Makes one wonder if the real problem is that the message testing pollsters aren’t up to the job.

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