Bluegrass Poll: Republican gains ground in tied race for Kentucky attorney general

Lexington Herald Leader ^ | 10/02/2015 | Jack Brammer and John Cheves

[Republican Wildcat]

FRANKFORT — The race for Kentucky attorney general slid to the right during the last 60 days as Democrat Andy Beshear lost the seven-point lead he held in July over Republican Whitney Westerfield.

Beshear and Westerfield are tied at 38 percent in a new statewide Bluegrass Poll of 701 likely voters conducted Sept. 22-27 by SurveyUSA. Twenty-two percent said they were undecided; 2 percent said they were not following the race.

The poll, taken on behalf of the Herald-Leader and WKYT-TV in Lexington and The Courier-Journal and WHAS-TV in Louisville, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

Three of the other four down-ballot races for statewide office Nov. 3 were in a statistical dead heat with less than five weeks remaining. The only candidate with a modest lead was Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who was eight points ahead of Republican challenger Steve Knipper.

Don Dugi, a political scientist at Transylvania University in Lexington, said he expects poll numbers to continue shifting in the lower-profile contests leading up to Election Day.

"We have not yet seen the major advertising for these candidates," Dugi said. "The most ads we have seen seem to be for attorney general."

In the previous Bluegrass Poll in late July, 40 percent of likely voters backed Beshear for attorney general, 33 percent favored Westerfield and 24 percent were undecided. Since then, Westerfield has solidified his standing among Republicans — 71 percent now back him, as do 19 percent of Democrats — while Beshear's support from Democrats sagged slightly, down three points to 59 percent.

[Republican Wildcat]

The overall results indicate a modest shift in momentum toward the GOP candidates (and significant shift in the AG race), but with a large amount of undecideds, and except for the Secretary of State race where unfortunately Alison Lundergan Grimes is still in the lead, but at 46% with virtually 100% name ID so there is still an outside chance she could be swept away. The governors race was at a stand-still. If Bevin gets it in gear there could be a potential sweep...if he doesn't, the opposite could occur.

[Impy]

Ping, downballot race are all very close ‘cept for Grimes, and she only leads her weak opponent by 8 points.