The new Public Policy Polling (D) survey of the Kentucky Senate race gives a huge lead to Republican nominee Rand Paul. And it also suggests that Democrat Jack Conway’s late gambit of attacking Paul’s religious background and Aqua-Buddhist college years only backfired in the end.
The numbers: Paul 55%, Conway 40%. The survey of likely voters has a ±3.1% margin of error. In the previous PPP survey from last week, Paul led by 53%-40%.
That previous poll had also indicated that voters didn’t like the Aqua Buddha ad. The pollster’s analysis goes a bit further, showing how Conway’s negative final push hasn’t worked:
Over the last month of the campaign this went from being a relatively competitive race to a not so competitive one. That didn’t have a ton to do with Rand Paul- his favorability in early September was 45/40 and now it’s 48/43, basically unchanged. The shift is more a reflection of Jack Conway’s image with Kentucky voters being shattered in the closing days. Seven weeks ago his favorability split evenly with 36% of voters rating him positively and negatively alike. Now he’s very unpopular with only 34% of voters saying they like him and 52% expressing unfavorable opinions toward him.
The TPM Poll Average gives Paul 50.3%, Conway 42.3%.
