KY-Sen: Paul Takes a Huge Primary Lead Over Grayson, Conway Leads Mongiardo

[ccharles000]

Public Policy Polling (12/18-21, likely voters):

Rand Paul (R): 44
Trey Grayson (R): 25
Undecided: 32
(MoE: ±4.5%)

That's an absolutely stunning lead for Paul, and some major egg-on-face for Mitch McConnell and the NRSC brain trust. We haven't seen a lot of public polling of the GOP primary, but warning signs emerged in August for Grayson, Kentucky's Secretary of State, when SurveyUSA released a poll showing him leading Paul by only 37-26. Research 2000 followed that up a couple of weeks later with a 40-25 Grayson lead. Just last month, SUSA followed up on the race and found that Paul had actually eked into a narrow 35-32 lead. Given the amount of heat that Grayson has been directing Paul's way in the past week over his ex-campaign spokesman's questionable association with white supremacists on MySpace, you know that Grayson realizes that he'll need to fight his way out of this one in a desperate fashion.

Now, you might think that a Paul primary win would be good news for Democrats, but check out what PPP is teasing about the still-to-be-released general election numbers:

the Kentucky general election numbers we'll release Wednesday show Rand Paul doing only one point worse than Trey Grayson against Jack Conway and three points worse against Dan Mongiardo.

That said, Paul definitely represents a weirder strain of Republican conservatism that could end up being a liability in a general election. His questionable inner circle is one thing, but consider also Ron Paul's non-position on 9/11 Trutherism. As an outsider, Paul is riding on a high against the establishment's hand-picked candidate, but his freak-wing politics will be ripe for clobbering if he makes it through a primary.

And for the Democrats...

Jack Conway (D): 37
Dan Mongiardo (D): 33
Undecided: 30
(MoE: ±4.2%)

This is the first poll we've seen of Conway leading Mongiardo all year. SUSA gave Mongiardo an 11-point lead in November (up from 8 in August), while R2K found Conway trailing by 37-30 in September. In any case, Mongiardo enjoys broader name recognition, so Conway has some room for growth here.

http://www.swingstateproject.com/diary/6068/kysen-paul-takes-a-huge-primary-lead-over-grayson

[PopSixSquish]

1. Should Conway Win, the Prettiness Quotient in the Senate Will Go Up by an Order of Magnitude

:evilgrin:

I take my happiness where I can get it these days...

[TheBigotBasher]

2. Not that it should be a contributory factor

but yep, he is cute.