Grimes vs. McConnell: why Democrats turned off spigot in Kentucky Senate race
Senate Democrats won't be funding television ads in support of Alison Lundergan Grimes in the last three weeks of the Kentucky Senate race, as Grimes fades in the polls and bobbles a big question.
Senate Democrats won't be funding television ads in support of Alison Lundergan Grimes in the last three weeks of the Kentucky Senate race, as Grimes fades in the polls and bobbles a big question.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will not be spending any money for television ads聽in the final three weeks of the campaign in Kentucky, a move that seems to send a signal about what national Democrats really think about the prospects for Alison Lundergan Grimes:
The sight of parties switching money out of one race and into an other is not uncommon, of course. In these final weeks of the race, decisions must be made by both parties about where to concentrate resources to places where they might be most effective. In this case, notwithstanding聽one recent poll聽that suggested that Grimes had surged, a聽subsequent poll聽showed Senator McConnell back in the lead with a four-point margin and聽the RealClearPolitics average gives him a three-point lead.聽At this point in the race, that鈥檚 going to be a tough margin to overcome for a Democrat running in what is largely a Republican state at the national level. Additionally, by near-universal assessment, Grimes has not helped herself in the last few days with a聽babbling and incoherent response聽to the question of whom she voted for in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, a problem that聽continued in last night鈥檚 debate. As Jeff Greenfield noted this morning, her response to the question, which would seem to be an easy one to answer, is politically dumb and聽tone deaf.
The Georgia race, by contrast, appears to be one that could be a good investment for national Democrats. While Republican nominee David Perdue does continue to lead in聽the polling average, three recent polls from聽Atlanta media,聽Survey USA, and聽Public Policy Polling聽do seem to suggest that Democrat Michelle Nunn is closing the gap. The issue that Democrats face in Georgia, though, is that it doesn鈥檛 appear that either Nunn or Perdue will end up getting more than 50% of the vote on Election Day, meaning that the will be forced into a head-to-head runoff on Jan. 6. In that race, with just Perdue and Nunn on the ballot, Nunn may find it harder to keep up the performance that she has in the polling to date. In any case, though, for the moment, Georgia appears to be a smarter investment than Kentucky where, absent some surprise, it really does appear that McConnell will pull of another victory.
Doug Mataconis appears on the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.