SurveyUSA (10/29-11/01, likely voters, 10/18-20 in parens):
Lunsford (D): 45 (48)
McConnell (R-inc): 53 (48)
Undecided: 4
(MoE: 4%)
Very discouraging trendlines for Lunsford at this late date. The earlier SUSA poll which showed the race tied matched Lunsford’s best performance all cycle (apart from a Rasmussen outlier back in May). But the drift in just a couple of weeks has been pretty stark. Whites were +3 for McConnell in the last poll; they are now +13. Independents were +6 for Lunsford; now they are +6 for Mitch.
As exciting as this race has been for some time, the problem (as I allude above) is that Lunsford has never had a lead in this race. With the last batch of polls all showing him behind anywhere from two to eight points, Bruce has to pull a serious rabbit out of his hat if we’re going to paint KY blue.
UPDATE: A cause for optimism? ChadinFL points out the final SUSA poll (PDF) of KY-Sen in 2004 (Mongiardo v. Bunning) was 51R-42D. The actual result? A 51-49 Bunning heartbreaker. The big difference, though, is that Mongiardo had moved up five net points in that last poll, where here, Lunsford has dropped eight.
When Mongiardo ended up so close to knocking off Bunning?
Here they are 49-42-8 (D-R-I)
According to October 15th registration figures ( http://migration.kentucky.gov/… ), the figures stand at:
57.2%-36.3%-6.6%
Perhaps with a more accurate turnout like above, it’s still a dead-heat race.
I mean AK and OR, and especially NC fell into place these last few weeks, but it looks like McConnell is going to hang on narrowly like he always does, (except for 2002). In the last few weeks Minnesota looks and feels like it pulled away from us, and Coleman got back on top just in time, and now it looks like McConnell is getting those conservative GOP voters back just in time to win. That would give us OR, NM, CO, VA, AK, NH, and NC that’s only seven.
Mississippi pulled away, despite the economic crisis. The only place that looks to really have moved our way is Georgia, but that would still leave Democrats one seat shy of 60. Still, getting to 60 votes when you have 59 normally reliable votes is a lot easier than when its at 51. If only we could get the upset. Maybe polls are overstating Wickers percentage of the black vote, in last one he had almost 20% I believe. Plus, they are overstating the turnout by 3-4 percentage points, that leaves a small window of hope for the upset their and the 60 seats Democrats need. I’d like to see another poll on Kentucky though.
I doubt much of the Eastern Kentucky electorate is included since many of them are poor and lack basic utilities, such as a phone. If McConnell loses Eastern Kentucky, then the race is going to be a tough one for him to win. Unemployment here is also very high.
I never let myself get optimistic about this race. McConnell ran into his biggest problems after his key role in pushing through the unpopular Wall Street bailout. He had five weeks to rectify that vote in the eyes of conservative Kentuckians and probably has. Now, if Ben Chandler had seen a tight race coming and been our candidate here, it might be a different story, but Bruce Lunsford was always gonna be a longshot. Victory in Mississippi seems unlikely as well, but the wild card there is if African-American turnout exceeds expectations by 2-3%. My suspicion is that Mississippi ends up closer than Kentucky for that reason.
From an e-mail from the Lunsford campaign:
“We’ve received several reports from supporters that there are late-night robocalls being sent out across Kentucky purporting to be from the Lunsford campaign. We’ve heard that these calls were sent out at 9, 10 or even 11 at night.”
I TOLD YA THEY’D PULL THIS S***!