The closely-watched race for Senate in Kentucky is now “a statistical dead heat,” according to a new poll sponsored by one of the the state’s largest papers. The Bluegrass Poll was conducted by automated phone call pollster SurveyUSA for the Louisville Courier-Journal last week and shows Republican nominee Rand Paul leading Democratic nominee Jack Conway 49-47.
The last Bluegrass Poll, conducted in late August showed Paul ahead 55-40. In the ensuing weeks, the Courier-Journal reports, Conway has built momentum among women and those wary of Paul’s extreme conservative views.
“The poll shows that Conway, the state’s attorney general, is now appealing to voters who say they are neutral on the tea party — Paul’s base of support,” the paper reports. “And Conway is building a significant lead among women, who earlier were almost evenly split between the two candidates.”
As the paper reports, Paul’s miniscule lead in the new poll “is well within the poll’s 4 percentage point margin of error,” making the result basically a tie.
The TPM Poll Average shows Paul in the lead 47.2-42.3. The trendlines seem to confirm the new Bluegrass Poll’s findings that the race is tightening:
Evan McMorris-Santoro
Evan McMorris-Santoro has covered politics for TPM since 2009. Before that, he was a reporter at National Journal’s Hotline covering election 2008. He started his career covering local politics at newspapers in TN and his native NC.
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