In Surprise, SurveyUSA Poll Shows Grimes With Edge Over McConnell in Kentucky

Is it a race after all?

After trailing by as many as seven points in every major poll since June, Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes now holds a slim lead over Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, according to a Bluegrass Poll survey released last week.

Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state, leads the five-term incumbent 46 percent to 44 percent among likely voters, according to the poll, conducted by SurveyUSA for Louisville’s Courier-Journal and three other state media outlets. Libertarian candidate David Patterson had 3 percent support in the poll, while 7 percent said they were undecided.

The poll follows an internal survey conducted a week earlier that also showed Grimes with a 2-point edge over the six-term incumbent, according to campaign sources.

‘Outlier’?

McConnell’s campaign, though, wasn’t impressed.

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

Of course, one would expect such a response from the Republican’s camp.

But Geoffrey Skelley, an independent political analyst with the University of Virginia, agrees that the poll doesn’t necessarily represent a meaningful shift in the dynamics of the race.

“It seems likely this is an outlier,” he said. “As always, one poll means little. This one will need confirmation from other surveys before we consider altering out outlook on the race.”

Grassroots Strategy Paying Off?

For now, Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the U.Va. forecast model for which Skelley serves as associate editor, has McConnell winning the race by a small but definitive margin.

But Grimes campaign manager Jonathan Hurst said in a statement that the poll “reflects the overwhelming grassroots enthusiasm Alison and our campaign see every day across the commonwealth.”

Democrats also point to the poll’s finding that 58 percent of registered voters believe McConnell should be replaced, a figure consistent with what other surveys have found recently.

Even more alarming for McConnell is the percentage of Republicans and conservatives who believe he’s been in Washington too long — 27 and 33 percent, respectively.

‘Grain Of Salt’

Still, University of Kentucky political scientist Stephen Voss said the poll’s results — and especially its 6-point swing from a month ago, when it had McConnell up by four points — won’t likely have Republicans changing their game plan anytime soon.

“I would take these results with a grain of salt, given that they deviate from everything we’ve seen recently,” Voss told the Courier-Journal.

Indeed, a poll released on Wednesday showed McConnell back on top by 4 points, a result more in line with polls of the last several months.

The McConnell campaign’s strategy has focused on tying Grimes to an unpopular President Obama, suggesting she would be little more than a rubber stamp for the president and his policies.

That tactic, which Republicans nationwide have employed this year as Obama’s favorability ratings stay mired in the mid to upper 30s, has proved effective in other states. The GOP needs to flip six seats in the Senate to take control of the chamber — and make McConnell majority leader in the process — and most analysts believe the party will reach that mark if current trends continue through Election Day.

Still, the Kentucky race is among the closest in the nation in this mid-term election year, and will likely go down to the wire.

Trouble On Tape

Grimes has insisted she isn’t an Obama clone and will stand up to the president when his policies go against Kentuckians’ best interests.

But the Democrat and her campaign haven’t helped themselves in convincing voters of her sincerity. The Grimes’ camp was stung last week when a secretly recorded video was released showing local Democratic officials questioning Grimes’ commitment to coal. The tape was produced by conservative activist James O’Keefe.

On the tape, the videographer asks Democratic officials what Grimes’ intentions are regarding coal.

“If we can get her elected do you think she is going to do the right thing and she’s gonna try to wipe out that coal industry and go for better resources?” says the videographer, who was secretly documenting the encounter.

“I absolutely think she is,” responds Fayette County Democratic Party operative Gina Bess.

“She has to say that,” added Juanita Rodriguez of the Warren County Democratic Party. “But you know what? Politics is a game. You do what you have to do to get [elected]. … It’s a lying game unfortunately.”

McConnell’s campaign pounced once the video was released, calling the comments by Democrats “shocking” and clear evidence that Grimes won’t go to bat for Kentucky coal.

“The level of deception that Alison Grimes and her campaign engages in to appear pro-coal despite obvious opposition is both disturbing and dangerous,” Moore said.

Grimes Responds

The Grimes camp fired back, calling O’Keefe a “discredited con artist,” and pointing out that no one on the tape works for Grimes or her campaign.

“The individuals in the video aren’t on our staff,” said Grimes’ spokeswoman Charly Norton. “The United Mine Workers of America endorsed Alison because of her unwavering commitment to Kentucky coal miners. The fact that McConnell’s campaign relies on a convicted criminal with a known history of absurd and deceptive projects is telling as McConnell attempts to make this race about anything but the loss of 25,000 coal jobs on his watch.”

O’Keefe, who has gained a reputation for secretly recording Democrats and liberals making embarrassing and contradictory comments, pleaded guilty in 2010 to a charge of entering federal property under false pretenses. The charge stemmed from an incident in which he and two other men secretly tried to record Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office.

Whether the tape costs Grimes voters remains to be seen, of course, but Skelley, the U.Va. analyst, isn’t sure it will make a difference one way or the other. He believes the environment that could lead to a GOP takeover of the Senate will push McConnell across the finish line first.

“Kentucky is a Republican state at the federal level,” he said . “[McConnell] may not be popular, but [he’s] a Republican in an environment favorable to his party in a state that doesn’t like the president.”

I am so far Right no one is truly Conservative enough for me. Consequently, I “hold my nose” EVERY election.

Here is the choice in Kentucky:

Grimes or McConnell

Grimes is a leftist, lying, scumbag.

McConnell has his faults however this is part of his record:

(1) For more than a decade, Sen. Mitch McConnell has stood alone in fighting unconstitutional campaign finance laws, earning him the undying enmity of The New York Times. (The Times is probably the largest contributor to the Senate Conservatives Fund opposing McConnell.) — McConnell took on the entire MSM, as well as members of his own party, principally John McCain and President Bush, who incomprehensibly signed McCain-Feingold into law with the idle musing that the Supreme Court could strike down any unconstitutional parts. (It didn’t — until some of it was finally overturned in Citizens United.) McConnell was the Ted Cruz of campaign finance laws, leading filibusters to block these outrageous infringements on free speech, writing op-eds and giving speeches denouncing them, and directly suing to have McCain-Feingold declared unconstitutional in McConnell v. FEC. As McConnell explained (beautifully): “(T)he political left has always faced an uphill climb in a country in which there are two self-identified conservatives for every self-identified liberal. ... In order to succeed in this environment, liberals have generally resorted to one of (three tactics): obscuring their true intent; pursuing through regulation and the courts what they can’t through legislation; or muzzling their critics.”

(2) As minority leader, McConnell managed to get every single Republican in the Senate to vote against Obamacare —even “Strange New Respect” Republicans like John McCain, Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham. No other Republican leader has ever accomplished anything like that. For example, under Minority Leader Bob Dole, seven Senate Republicans voted for Clinton’s 1994 crime bill, which contained the assault weapons ban widely credited with Republicans’ sweep of Congress later that year. That’s not merely a reflection of Republicans being worse back then: Among the “Ayes” were conservative John Danforth (Mo.) and William Cohen — as good as you get from Maine. The importance of a solid Republican vote against Obamacare can hardly be overstated. Thanks to McConnell, there is no confusion about which party is responsible for this widely detested law — and which party you should vote for to get rid of it.

(3) McConnell tricked Obama into accepting the only spending cuts to the federal government in more than half a century. Obama originally proposed the sequester on the assumption that its provisions were so harsh, Republicans would never accept it. But McConnell called his bluff and, for the first time since Eisenhower’s first term, a bill was signed into law that would impose large-scale spending cuts on the federal government. Even Ronald Reagan didn’t cut federal spending! McConnell did — and that was with a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in the Senate. (Imagine what he could do with a Senate majority!) Unfortunately, that deal was lightly thrown away by Rep. Paul Ryan last month, after he was bamboozled by the stupidest person in America, Sen. Patty Murray. Ryan claimed he jettisoned the spending cuts in order to restore military spending. I’m sorry, but who cares about military spending as long as Obama is president? At the rate he’s going, Obama might use our military to attack England. In any event, about a week after Ryan scuttled McConnell’s historic budget cuts, Obama’s defense secretary announced plans to reduce the Army to its smallest force since before World War II. Good work, Paul! While we’re on the subject, Ryan also supports giving the Democrats 30 million new voters with amnesty. But I don’t see the shyster “tea party” groups or talk radio charlatans trying to take out Ryan. Only the guy who cut government spending for the first time in 60 years is on the hit list of the Senate Conservatives Fund and the rest of the fake tea partiers.

(4) On the most important issue — immigration — McConnell not only voted against Marco Rubio’s amnesty bill, but at the moment, he may be the only thing standing between us and a scheme to import 30 million new Democratic voters. As House Speaker John Boehner works feverishly behind the scenes to push amnesty through, McConnell recently announced that there would be no immigration bill in 2014 (thank almighty God). There are breathless headlines all over the Internet claiming, “McConnell Supports Amnesty!” but when you click on them, the links don’t work and the claims don’t make sense. In fact, over the years, McConnell has voted for: — preventing legal immigrants from collecting food stamps (1997); — a border fence (2006); and — English as the official language of the U.S. government (2007). He also voted to block federal funds from being sent to so-called “sanctuary cities” for illegal aliens (2008). The only amnesty McConnell ever voted for was the one signed by President Reagan in 1986. I know this from looking up McConnell’s actual voting record, as opposed to reading nonsensical jeremiads against McConnell on the RedState blog. True, McConnell is bad on guest worker programs, but if that’s the test, the only Republican senator worth a damn is Jeff Sessions. I don’t disagree, but I wish conservatives would mention that to their elected representatives once in a while. Like Ted Cruz. According to The New York Times, Cruz supports “a path to legal status,” with “the goal of allowing (illegal aliens) to stay,” and expressly rejects Mitt Romney’s idea of “self-deportation.” (”Cruz Tries to Claim the Middle Ground on Immigration,” Sept. 12, 2013.) McConnell has never said anything that bad on immigration.

If Republicans and CONSERVATIVES(And whatever USELESS 3rd party some fantasize about) can’t find some common ground they will be forever relegated to a toothless minority. Grimes isn’t “a lesson McConnell needs to learn”. She is a leftist, Socialist, who will help take this nation to depths we may never recover from.

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