WHAS11/Courier-Journal: Clinton ties with Paul in Kentucky

[Gallium]

http://www.whas11.com/story/news/politics/2015/05/13/kentucky-gop-republican-voters-back-rand-paul-president-hillary-clinton-presents-challenge/27261477/

45% Rand Paul (R)
45% Hillary Clinton (D)
11% Undecided

MOE = ± 2.2%

Also primary polling:

26% Rand Paul
15% Mike Huckabee
12% Jeb Bush
10% Scott Walker
7% Ben Carson
6% Ted Cruz
6% Marco Rubio
2% Chris Christie
2% Rick Santorum
2% Rick Perry
2% Bobby Jindal
1% Carly Fiorina
2% Other
8% Undecided

[Lief 🗽]

lol, rand's barely winning his home state

[Ebsy]

PURPLE KENTUCKY!!1!!!111!!

You know what's crazy about this poll: Clinton is only losing whites by 4 points.

[mds32]

Let's wait and see, one ad should quell the Clinton hopes here. One ad talking about even the possibility of ruining the coal industry and the GOP will remind everyone of KY about Clinton's ties to President Obama who has a bad track record in KY.

[Ebsy]

Let's wait and see, one ad should quell the Clinton hopes here. One ad talking about even the possibility of ruining the coal industry and the GOP will remind everyone of KY about Clinton's ties to President Obama who has a bad track record in KY.

Pretty sure the ship had sailed on the coal industry bub. Running a heavily pro-coal didn't help Alison Lundergan-Grimes a bit.

[Flake]

New Poll: Kentucky President by Bluegrass Poll on 2015-05-10

Summary: D: 45%, R: 45%, U: 11%

Poll Source URL: Full Poll Details

[Tender Branson]

Interesting:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

...

[henster]

I believe SUSA had ALG leading turtle in their last poll... And she ended losing by 16 points so I take this with a grain of salt. I really don't see any reason Clinton will do any better than ALG here, she won't pander to coal or won't run from Obama so...

[Ebsy]

If these numbers are true, I don't see why Clinton wouldn't spend some money in Kentucky as well as pencil in a few campaign stops after the primary. I obviously don't expect her to win, but with the sheer amount of cash she is going to raise, the law of diminishing returns means she can only spend so much on Iowa and Florida. Spending in tilt Republicans states could drive up her popular vote percentage, at the very least.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

ROFLMAO!!! Okay, so Hillary Clinton is trailing in NH but tied in KY? A state that Bill Clinton won by less than 1 point in 1996 because of Perot who got 9% of the vote and took more votes away from Republicans, as the 2000 KY exit polls and results showed. This poll is a junk poll and the very fact that Democrats here are taking it seriously shows that Hillary's biggest problem will be her supposed inevitability and invincibility. Oh, and:

I actually think it will be 2016, even though 2014 was already terrible. The number of 2016 junk polls is already really frightening.

Clinton isn't trailing in NH. Despite how desperately the anti-Hillary fetishists latch onto the UNH/WMUR poll (despite it's terrible track record), PPP gave the real numbers less than a month ago.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

If these numbers are true, I don't see why Clinton wouldn't spend some money in Kentucky as well as pencil in a few campaign stops after the primary.

Maybe she should spend money in every state. Isn't that what the 50-state strategy is all about?

The Republicans have had a 50-state strategy forever. The Democrats need to bring back theirs that they had in the late 2000s.

[pbrower2a]

The Clinton-but-not-Obama states may remain that.

I would of course rather see other matchups; I cannot ensure that Rand Paul is the best possible nominee for the GOP in Kentucky. One can no longer assume that a politician being from a certain state gives him a huge advantage in a Presidential election.

Barack Obama lost the state 60-37 in 2012. Mondale lost the state 60-39 in 1984. McGovern lost the state 63-34. One does not lose a state by 20% or more unless one is a horrible match for the state. Comparing Obama to McGovern or Mondale, the two Democrats who lost in 49-state blowouts might seem ludicrous when one considers that Obama won about as middling a victory as any President ever got in 2012, but such says much about Barack Obama, at least in the part of the country that decisively rejected him. He was the Democratic equivalent of Ronald Reagan in the part that he won, but the equivalent of George McGovern or Walter Mondale where he lost.

In subsequent elections to 1972 and 1984 -- Jimmy Carter won Kentucky by 7%. Dukakis still lost Kentucky by 2% more than the national average, but Bill Clinton won the state in 1992 and 1996. Carter and Clinton were about as good cultural matches for Kentucky as McGovern, Mondale, and Obama were horrible matches for Kentucky.

Some national polls have shown Hillary Clinton projecting to win by 10% or so -- but most of the statewide polls have been in states that Barack Obama won by huge margins in 2008. Obama maxed those states out; Hillary Clinton is not gaining in those states. She must be gaining elsewhere -- maybe a little in close states of 2008 and 2012. She's not going to gtet all of her gain in Ohio or Virgina. The PPP poll in Arizona shows a huge Democratic gain there that coincides with weak approvals for just about every elected Republican. The Bluegrass poll shows only one matchup. That may not be enough to project Kentucky as a state to be decided by a razor-thin margin.

Hillary Clinton already has the electoral machine of Barack Obama on her side. But she does not have the cultural baggage of Obama. She is not the new George Mondale or Walter McGovern in the Mountain and Deep South as was Barack Obama.  

[Gass3268]

Hillary won't win Kentucky, but its going to be much closer than it has been.

[pbrower2a]

If these numbers are true, I don't see why Clinton wouldn't spend some money in Kentucky as well as pencil in a few campaign stops after the primary.

Maybe she should spend money in every state. Isn't that what the 50-state strategy is all about?

The Republicans have had a 50-state strategy forever. The Democrats need to bring back theirs that they had in the late 2000s.

In an open-seat election one widens the map if one can, as Clinton did in 1992, Dubya did in 2000, and Obama did in 2008. Neither Bill Clinton nor Dubya could have won without doing so. Obama was never certain of victory in 2008 until mid-September, and he may have seen the economic meltdown as the cause of his win... so why was he campaigning in Indiana in 2008 unless he was uncertain of winning? An incumbent may have good cause to not campaign in states that he barely won or lost in the previous campaign -- Senate seats in Indiana and Missouri were worth more to President Obama than were 21 electoral votes that he could afford to lose by not campaigning.

[Tender Branson]

I believe SUSA had ALG leading turtle in their last poll... And she ended losing by 16 points so I take this with a grain of salt. I really don't see any reason Clinton will do any better than ALG here, she won't pander to coal or won't run from Obama so...

No, SUSA's last poll was McConnell+5.

But not only SUSA was bad, every pollster sucked badly in KY.

[Lief 🗽]

LOL at Paul and Clinton tied in eastern Kentucky.

[King]

LOL at Paul and Clinton tied in eastern Kentucky.

Maybe Hilldog will get native Eastern Kentuckian Jennifer Lawrence to barnstorm for her.

[Tender Branson]

Hillary ≠ Katniss Everdeen.

The only scenario in which I can see Hillary winning East-Kentucky is if she works in coalmine for a week during her GE campaign ...

[King]

Interesting:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The campaign has already said she will run a 50 state campaign like Obama 2008. The local news in KY is probably just exaggerating this info.

[HAnnA MArin County]

PUMAs!!

[IceSpear]

Meh, SUSA sucks in Kentucky.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

The Courier Journal is a Newspaper based in Louisville with a known bias towards the Democrats.

Anyway, Rand Paul wins 18% of black voters!

LOL at Paul and Clinton tied in eastern Kentucky.

Maybe Hilldog will get native Eastern Kentuckian Jennifer Lawrence to barnstorm for her.

Lawrence is from Louisville.

[Eraserhead]

SUSA's crosstabs mean nothing. They've always meant nothing.

[Xing]

Obviously a junk poll, but I have to wonder: How does Paul win KY in the general election if he's running for senate? His name couldn't be on the ballot, so would he have to run a write-in campaign specifically in KY? Wouldn't at least some people see that as gaming the system?

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I like this; even KY isnt all that safe for the GOP.