Senate Minority Leader Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) re-election effort could suffer if he votes against a minimum wage increase, according to a poll released Tuesday.
A poll conducted by Democratic-leaning PPP, on behalf of Americans United for Change, found that 42 percent of Kentucky voters said they’d be less likely to back McConnell next fall if he votes against a wage hike. Just 25 percent said a ‘no’ vote would make them more likely to support the majority leader.
Notably, the poll found 40 percent of Republicans in the state showed support for a minimum wage increase.
McConnell said on “Fox News Sunday” that he believes raising the minimum wage will hurt employment, arguing instead that “we ought to be doing things that create more jobs.”
But that approach may hurt him with crucial undecided voters in the Bluegrass state. As PPP pollster Tom Jensen pointed out in the poll’s release, undecided voters support raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour by a 25 point margin. Those voters are also less likely to vote for a candidate that doesn’t support the wage hike by a margin of 20 points.
