Posted on 02/09/2014 4:42:32 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Republicans are buoyant they can capture the Senate this year but will Mitch McConnell still be there as majority leader?
A surprising survey out of Kentucky this week underscores that the Senate minority leader is truly running the race of his life and could even be the underdog heading into 2014.
The Bluegrass Poll, conducted by SurveyUSA for several local TV stations and newspapers, showed McConnell trailing Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes by four points, 46 percent to 42 percent. Its the Secretary of states biggest lead yet and outside the polls margin of error.
Maybe most troubling for the 29-year incumbent are his persistently low approval ratings 60 percent disapprove of the job hes doing in office which make him as unpopular as Obama in the Bluegrass State. Fifty percent of Kentuckians also view McConnell unfavorably.
Part of McConnells problem lies in the fact that hes fending off attacks from both his left and right flanks. With a primary challenge from businessman Matt Bevin, hes sustained attacks from conservative groups that have further dinged him along with Democrat hits.
And with his favorables so low, its difficult for him at this point to hammer Lundergan Grimes too hard or focus all his resources on her until he moves past the May primary.
The new numbers turned heads in Bluegrass State political circles. Al Cross, a veteran Kentucky political reporter and University of Kentucky professor, said he was surprised to see McConnells favorability so low in the poll, noting that the results show an exodus of one-time McConnell supporters he needs to recapture.
The poll gives me the impression that shes not driving her own numbers, that its McConnell thats driving the numbers, he said. McConnell is on his knees at this time.
Cross also said Lundergan Grimes appears to be hitting an important measure by outperforming the Democratic base in the state, which typically has a ceiling of 42-44 percent support.
Democrats are gleeful at the results. They say McConnells unpopularity makes it more difficult for the Republican to knock Lundergan Grimes for her connections to the president, and, as her spokeswoman Charly Norton put it, McConnell was wrong to underestimate the Democrat.
Mitch McConnell made a fatal mistake by underestimating Alison since she got in the race, she said. They have no effective message against her. They tried to scare her out of the race claiming they were gonna play whack-a-mole, but she announced anyway. They claimed she wasnt polished enough to be in the race, but she kicked it off with a huge rousing speech in July in front of 2,000 supporters. They claimed she didnt have deep knowledge of the issues but shes the only candidate in the race with a jobs plan.
Still, multiple aides and allies to McConnell said they have no plans to shift their strategy, emphasizing that with nine months to go its too early to press the panic button, especially with just a four-point race in one poll.
We feel very comfortable about where we are in this campaign and are excited to execute the plan we set in motion over a year ago. We have every confidence that Sen. McConnell will be reelected in November, McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton said in an email to The Hill.
Justin Brasell, who ran McConnells reelection campaign in 2008, pointed to the mostly close polling throughout that race and the ultimately comfortable win margin for the senator as a reason not to worry about the new poll.
It was a tied race all the way to the end, all of the polls were within the margin of error, but at the end of the day Senator McConnell was able to pull ahead and win by six points, he said.
Still, Democrats believe the tighter polling this time around indicate McConnells the most vulnerable hes ever been, and could finally be heading towards defeat.
But Billy Piper, a former McConnell chief of staff and political adviser, said the senator is running his current race with the last one in mind.
The 08 experience is fresh in his mind, which was a very competitive very hard-fought race. As soon as 08 was over, we were assuming that 14 was going to be a knock-down drag-out race. None of this is unforeseen, said Piper.
Scott Jennings, a former political adviser to McConnell whos now lead adviser to the pro-McConnell super PAC Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, said that, in the new poll, he doesnt see anything that tells me what I dont know.
But he also said the poll didnt match up with other private polling hes seen, an indication the public numbers may have caught McConnells supporters off-guard.
The survey, at the very least, had Team Mitch on defense, with aides and allies questioning the validity of the automated polls methodology and arguing that when they finally do get their message out, theyll win on it.
Hunter Bates, McConnells former chief of staff, said the poll will have absolutely no impact on strategy, and said Lundergan Grimes has been able to hide out for the first six months of the campaign, but will not be able to go another nine months without talking about important issues like coal and the Keystone Pipeline.
Jennings said the reason voters are high on Lundergan Grimes right now is she hasnt been fully introduced to them, but that both McConnell and KSL will correct that as the race continues.
Very few people know anything at all about Alison Lundergan Grimes, and when they find out about some of her positions, or inability to articulate a position, or unwillingness to share her position, youre going to see her negatives go higher and higher, he said.
The main reason McConnell and his supporters havent yet been able to hone in on Lundergan Grimes is because the incumbent has also been preoccupied with Bevin. The businessmans primary campaign has been problematic for McConnells campaign on two levels: Its drawn attention and resources from the general election contest, and its made it more difficult for McConnell to tout his work for the state and build a positive narrative around his candidacy.
McConnells been the subject of more than $1 million in attacks from Democratic and conservative groups, focused on his long tenure in office and what Democrats see as his failure to deliver for Kentucky.
In particular, conservative groups like the Senate Conservatives fund and FreedomWorks have spent more than $600,000 combined on television ads and mailers charging McConnell hasnt done enough to oppose Obamas agenda and excessive government spending, and dismantle ObamaCare.
Those ads likely contributed to the 43 percent of conservatives in the Bluegrass Poll who disapprove of the job the senator is doing.
Piper said the primary has been an unwelcome distraction for McConnell, in that he has to take care of these things in sequential order, and the primary comes first.
And touting his seniority and the millions hes brought back to Kentucky during his nearly three decades in office plays directly into the conservative criticism that hes a creature of Washington and hasnt done enough to slash budgets and oppose excessive government spending.
Cross pointed to McConnells first ad of the year, in which a Paducah energy worker touted McConnells work helping secure health benefits for him, as evidence the senator can make that case in a way that doesnt necessarily feed into conservative attacks.
We thought when earmarks were eliminated that he would no longer be able to run much on delivering for the state, but there are ways to deliver that are non-appropriations, he said.
Voters can expect, Cross predicted, to see more stories like those from McConnell in the coming weeks.
And Bates indicated that emphasizing McConnells seniority and power in Congress will continue to be a focus of the senators reelection campaign.
It will be nearly impossible for Grimes to convince voters in a midterm election to replace the most powerful senator in Kentucky history with a first-term foot soldier in the Reid-Obama army, he said.
Still, the numbers arent welcome news for the Senate Minority Leader, and if they continue, as Norton put it, McConnell may have finally met his match and his replacement.
Underdog? Dead dog is more appopriate.
McConnell has assented to every single destruction
of the USA by Bush and the Obama.
And he continued to allow the US Senate to arm al Qaeda
and coverup its coup d’etat at the highest US levels
AFTER the 911 Atrocities.
So the solution to this problem is clear:
If he took America’s side instead of Mexico’s, he wouldn’t be in this situation.
You don't think Alexandra Chaffe might have left that out on purpose do you?
“Republicans are buoyant they can capture the Senate this year”
This explains the do nothing tip toe to the election strategy by the GOP. They think the election is in the bag nine months out. Fools.
Mitch can either make this about himself or about putting the GOP first, he cannot do both in his current position. Bevin wins in November, Mitch loses. It’s that simple.
Who would want to re-elect ANY of the present bunch?
He forgot where “home” was.
I do. This is written to help pile on McConnell.
He and his supporters have a real fight on their hands.
If he loses he needs to help Bevin in the general election.
But will he?
That there is even doubt, gets to the root of the problem facing the GOP-e.
They tell us about how you have to make deals to be effective government but they have drifted away from fighting for conservatism and winning with ideas - those bold colors that define America and promote liberty and freedom.
The U.S. Senate needs fumigating.
Underdog my ass! He knows full well the problems we face as a result of his and others’ antics. Vote him out and move on.
Wouldn’t it be poetic justice to take the Senate and lose McConnell (Minority Leader) and Cornyn (Minority Whip) in the same election.
It would throw that entire leadership team into vacuum. Thun, Brasso and Blunt would take a step back and new blood would step up.
And if you want to really dream, what would happen to Bohner as Speaker if the Senate were to fall in that manner. It could cause a complete disruption to the GOP Elite power.
What a message.
Yes.
How ironic that we must make them fear their base more than they fear their “friends” across the aisle.
"Master, I ain't pushing TOO hard, am I?"
"Just a little lower, Comrade Cornyn."
McConnell is the incumbent and that makes him the favorite. Just because he’s trailing doesn’t make him an underdog.
I actually think that polls during primaries about the general election can be very misleading.
Some number of supporters of each primary candidate, trying to build up support for their candidate, will claim they will vote for the opposition in the general election.
So, for example, if in the primary, candidate A is leading B 60-40, and 20% of each candidate’s supporters are relatively active in politics, candidate A could be leading the general election candidate C by 55-45, but the 8% of candidate B supporters would say they’d vote for C, making a 16% swing, leaving the poll at 47%-A, 53%-C.
The real question is, if McConnell manages to win the primary, WHO is going to vote for the democrat? Will it be the “moderate republicans”, the “RINOS”? No, because MM is their candidate, right?
So, are the conservatives, seeing the 3rd straight election where we could take the senate, going to torpedo that by voting for the democrat or staying home? Unlikely — I think most conservatives have learned the lesson that it doesn’t matter how many conservatives you get into the senate if Harry Reid is still in charge.
Now, if the conservative candidate wins, it is possible that those moderate republicans would vote for the democrat. I just don’t see conservatives staying home again like they did in 2012.
As I wrote in a previous post. Cornyn is the first to face a primary. Take him out and watch the momentum build for the others.
Bevin is obviously the most electable Republican candidate, and so Mitch needs to drop out. Rove said that was the way it had to be, didn’t he?
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