PPP/Daily Kos Poll Kentucky Sentate: Paul 49% Conway 42%

[WI_DEM]

PPP for Daily Kos. 9/11-12. Likely voters. MoE 3.2% (5/2 results)

Rand Paul (R) 49 (41)
Jack Conway (D) 42 (40)



The race is still engaged, but these results show us just how tough Kentucky is. Obama has a 37-60 approval rating in the state, including a weak 60-37 among Democrats (many of whom are social conservatives more than happy to vote Republican). Indeed, while the sample is 49 percent Democratic and 39 percent Republican, it's also 53 percent McCain voters and 40 percent Obama voters. It's that kind of state.

Now Conway is holding Obama supporters, but Paul is holding McCain voters, and there's lost more of those. In fact, Conway's deficit comes at the hand of those who consider themselves most conservative, since the Democrat's lead among liberals is 84-10 and among moderates 60-29. It's that 14-78 deficit among conservatives that's killing him.

Interestingly, Kentucky may be one of the few places were Democrats don't suffer from an intensity gap. PPP's Tom Jensen notes that the poll shows a Kentucky electorate that went for McCain by 13 points, when the Republican actually won it by 16. So Rand Paul is motivating Democrats, and given them a three-point intensity gap. However...

The Democrats’ problem in Kentucky isn’t the enthusiasm gap- Rand Paul took care of that for us. It’s because after showing some wariness earlier in the summer, when we had the race tied, the McCain voters have pretty much all gone home to Paul. In late June he was getting 70% of their votes and now for all his missteps he’s getting 80% of their votes. In a state that went as strongly Republican last time as Kentucky Conway is going to have to be able to pick off more of their voters than that to have a path to victory.

Now Conway still has room to grow -- 28 percent of voters still haven't made up their mind about him, compared to just 14 percent for Rand Paul. And the meth problem in Eastern Kentucky is still a viable point of attack -- with respondents saying, by 67-15 margin, that it's a "pressing issue" (Rand Paul said it wasn't one). That includes independents by a 58-24 margin, and even Republicans by 65-16. It's clear Conway will use that issue to better brand himself in the state, and he needs to because when we asked which candidate "understands the state of Kentucky" better, Paul the ignoramus fared very well -- 40 percent said "yes", 41 percent said "no" for Rand Paul, while Conway only checked in with 39-37

www.dailykos.com

[HuckleB]

1. Ugh.

[Dawson Leery]

2. This is Kentucky.

How many of them are blindly casting a vote against Obama?

[CherokeeDem]

6. Probably some...

just like they are in the other 49 states. Kentucky, despite what you might like to believe, doesn't hold the market on racism.

[Dawson Leery]

8. Certainly bigots exist in every state.

The problem is that this is more pronounced in a state such as Kentucky.

[Drunken Irishman]

3. Conway is done.

He hasn't made any headway since the primaries and I don't see how that changes over the next two months.

I wanted some sign of life and while it's close, the poll shows he's lost ground.

Paul will win and it probably won't be close.

[Cha]

4. Just went to Jack's site..

http://www.jackconway.org/

"The Kentucky Fraternal Order of Police has endorsed Attorney General Jack Conway in the U.S. Senate race.

The Louisville Democrat “is right on target” when it comes to law enforcement issues, said FOP president Michael “Spike” Jones, assistant police chief in Covington.

“We feel like Jack is going to do his utmost to support us,” Jones said.

He said Conway has been a “strong and effective” attorney general, cracking down on cybercrime and prescription drug abuse.

Jones said Republican Rand Paul didn’t reply to the FOP endorsement survey, nor did he reply to an invitation to address the group in person during a meeting Saturday in Louisville.

Paul’s campaign manager did not respond to requests for comment."

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/nkypolitics/2010/08/16/state-fop-endorses-conway/

:bounce::bounce::bounce:

[Cognitive_Resonance]

5. It's a competitve race. I think momentum in general is now moving toward Democrats. nt

[totodeinhere]

10. Why do you say that when this poll actually shows Paul increasing his lead from where he was a month

ago?

[Cognitive_Resonance]

12. Campaign season is just starting. The Republicans have peaked.

Keep in mind that the Republican base has been foaming at the mouth continuously since the 2008 elections. Of course polls are going to capture the so-called Intensity Gap. I think it's really an Intensity Lag, and we are beginning to see the base "come alive" for the general. Pres. Obama is on the offensive, and it's important to remember just how powerful a campaigner he can be. The powder has been kept mostly dry until now. The big TV and cable ad rotations are yet to hit. With seven more weeks of intense campaigning to go, that single digit spread between Paul and Conway is not really much of a gap.

[sandnsea]

7. This defines the problem for the Democratic Party

These people are not "voting for the man" or "voting on the issues" or anything of the sort.

They have been brainwashed. There is no reason on earth that Rand Paul would win an election in any state in the country if people were voting on policy.

Democrats in these states keep running on the idea that their states are full of conservatives, instead of fighting these ideas with the knowledge that no one who volunteers for them has these conservative ideas.

[Still Sensible]

9. Kentucky is a lot like Oklahoma

In each there are more registered democrats than republicans;

they run closed primaries, so there is no crossover on primary votes;

there are so many blue dogs that vote republican in general elections.

This is why in the Kentucky primary, for example, the guy who finished second behind Conway had more votes that day than Paul did in winning on the GOP side. Then lo' and behold, the next week the damn polls are showing Paul with a double digit lead in the senate race. I believe that this is a result of the remarkable success of the way the Reagan years reshaped politics and in places like Kentucky and Oklahoma it is so entrenched it is not going to change without some incredible turn of events.

The demonization of government, liberals and democrats; The perpetration of the fiscal conservative fraud (i.e. its not about the defiit...they don't care... its about spending on defense, tax breaks for the wealthy, and protecting banking institutions and corporations). The theocratization of politics--i.e. the republicans are on Gods side and everyone else is not--and God, country, so called family values, are republican, etc., etc. All of this took root with Reagan and in 30 years has been cemented by successive Gingriches, Robertsons, Bushes, Limbaughs, and now Glenn Fucking Beck and the fucking teabaggers.

Generally speaking in many places the phenomenon that was called "Reagan Democrats" in the 80s has largely come to their senses... but in places like Oklahoma and Kentucky, fueled by the fundamentalist right and its wedge issues, it hasn't gone away--it is in stone.

[Beaverhausen]

11. Have they debated yet?

[JCMach1]

13. Paul is getting painfully close to 50%+ though

:(

[FBaggins]

16. Paul isn't an incumbent.

The magic of the 50% line is really limited to incumbents or those, like Joe Manching in WV, with such total name recognition that they might as well be incumbents.

In an open seat election, the gap and the makeup of the undecideds is what's important.

Our best hope against Paul at this point is if we can make the tea party candidates a national issue... so that Paul is tainted by Angle and O'Donnel.

[catgirl]

14. Something's gotta give

Ads showing Paul as a libertarian rather than a republican could help take away some of his support.
The drug issue is one example, but we need more.

[dtotire]

15. He Would Be An Embarassment For KY n/t

[PVnRT]

17. Paul is also a liar about how he's "board-certified"

http://www.randwaffles.com/Board_Certified.html

Unfortunately, the Courier-Journal requires you to pay to see archived articles, so I can't link the originals.