NEWS

New poll: McConnell bests Bevin, tied with Grimes

James R. Carroll
Louisville
Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes and Sen. Mitch McConnell

WASHINGTON - Kentucky voters go to the polls a week from Tuesday, and it appears the battle for the Republican Senate nomination will produce a lopsided victory for Mitch McConnell, according to a new poll.

But a November match-up between McConnell and Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes is a dead-heat, the survey says.

The NBC News-Marist Poll finds McConnell, the Senate minority leader, with a wide lead of 57-25 percent over his challenger, Louisville businessman Matt Bevin.

For the general election, McConnell essentially is in a statistical tie with Grimes, Kentucky's secretary of state, with the senator leading 46-45 percent.

The survey results match most other polls on the race and are pretty much unchanged since February Bluegrass Poll, conducted by The Courier-Journal and three other news organizations, that showed McConnell leading Bevin 55-29 percent and trailing Grimes 46-42 percent, within the poll's margin of error.

The NBC News-Marist Poll was one of three taken in key Senate races in the South - the other two were in Arkansas and Georgia. In all three cases, the survey found Democrats to be doing well despite the generally poor electoral climate for President Barack Obama's party this year.

"These are competitive states as far as the general is concerned," Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, said in a statement.

Obama's job approval numbers remain poor in Kentucky: 56 percent of registered voters said they disapprove of the job he is doing; 32 percent said they approve.

For McConnell, 46 percent of registered voters disapprove of the job he is doing, while 41 percent said they approve.

By a nearly identical margin, 46 percent of registered voters have an unfavorable impression of the senator, while 42 percent have a favorable impression, according to the poll.

Thirty-nine percent of registered Kentucky voters have a favorable impression of Grimes, while 24 percent have an unfavorable impression. Twenty-seven percent are unsure and another 10 percent have never heard of her.

The Kentucky poll was conducted April 30-May 6 involving 2,353 registered voters and 408 likely GOP primary voters. The margin of error in the registered voters poll is plus or minus 2 percentage points. The margin of error on likely Republican primary voters is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.