The new Public Policy Polling (D) survey of the Kentucky Senate race gives a huge lead to Republican nominee Rand Paul. And it also suggests that Democrat Jack Conway’s late gambit of attacking Paul’s religious background and Aqua-Buddhist college years only backfired in the end.
The numbers: Paul 55%, Conway 40%. The survey of likely voters has a ±3.1% margin of error. In the previous PPP survey from last week, Paul led by 53%-40%.
That previous poll had also indicated that voters didn’t like the Aqua Buddha ad. The pollster’s analysis goes a bit further, showing how Conway’s negative final push hasn’t worked:
Over the last month of the campaign this went from being a relatively competitive race to a not so competitive one. That didn’t have a ton to do with Rand Paul- his favorability in early September was 45/40 and now it’s 48/43, basically unchanged. The shift is more a reflection of Jack Conway’s image with Kentucky voters being shattered in the closing days. Seven weeks ago his favorability split evenly with 36% of voters rating him positively and negatively alike. Now he’s very unpopular with only 34% of voters saying they like him and 52% expressing unfavorable opinions toward him.
The TPM Poll Average gives Paul 50.3%, Conway 42.3%.
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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