The race for Senate in Kentucky is extremely close, according to a new poll out from Reuters this afternoon. Republican nominee Rand Paul leads Democrat Jack Conway 45-40 among likely voters in the survey, which has a 4.7% margin of error.
Among registered voters, the race is an absolute dead heat, with Conway and Paul tied 40-40.
This is the first Reuters/Ipsos poll of the race.
Despite the Paul lead, the poll likely comes as good news to Team Conway, which hopes that their strategy of making the race about Paul and focusing on law and order can get Conway a win in a race that by all rights should be the Republicans’ to lose.
Today’s poll shows that strategy may be working — but the boost for Paul among likely voters shows that he still carries the more motivated base. Conway, like other Democrats running this year, will have to energize less-than-enthused Democrats if he wants to beat a Republican like Paul who has the backing of the super-duper motivated tea party.
The TPM Poll Average for the race shows Paul ahead 45.2-40.8.
The new Reuters survey of 600 registered voters was conducted by Ipsos Aug. 13-15 and has a margin of error of 4%. The subsample of 435 likely voters has a margin of error of 4.7%.
