In the second poll taken since the Kentucky primaries and the first since Republican Rand Paul talked openly about his reservations with certain aspects of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Paul leads Democrat Jack Conway by 3 points, according to the DailyKos/Research2000 survey (May 24-26, 600 LV, MoE +/- 4%).
Paul 44
Conway 41
Und 15
People should be dubious of this poll for a number of reasons. First, it's commissioned by the Daily Kos. That's not exactly a bastion of objective polling. Second, here are the internals. 80% of Republicans were voting for Paul. 76% of Democrats were voting for Conway and Paul beat Conway by 43-31 among independents. Now, Kentucky is Republican heavy state. So, getting more of his own party and winning solidly among independents, we're supposed to believe that Paul is only up by 3%. That's misleading but it does appear as though the race has tightened.
2 comments:
Why does it matter who commissioned the poll? Do you really think Kos could influence Research 2000 into creating a manipulated poll? R2K isn't a partisan polling outfit to my knowledge.
In any case, Kentucky like most Southern States are known for having large Democratic voter registrations even if a lot of them vote Republican, which would explain the 3% margin and the fact that Conway doesn't have as much Democratic support as Paul has from Republicans.
But I've said it before and I'll say it again: if Jim Bunning can win statewide office in Kentucky then there's no reason Paul can't.
Actually, it doesn't show the race is tightening. This same pollster polled the KY race and had the exact same lead by Rand Paul in a poll taken May 10-12. The same poll said Rand Paul would only beat his opponent in the primary a week later, by 10%. In fact Paul won by 23%. This is the Daily Kos poll, and it skews liberal.
The prior poll was Rasmussen, and we would have to compare it to the next Rasmussen poll to see the interim impact.
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