Election 2014: Kentucky We’d might as well start with the Senate race that’s most likely to attract the most money and attention this cycle. The playing field: To those who only pay attention to Kentuckys behavior in national elections, Kentucky must seem like a reliable Republican state. While Kentucky does lean conservative, it is considerably less so than the deep South. While all three elections had some special circumstances, the last three Democratic presidents before Obama all carried Kentucky, notably failing to join the rest of the South in supporting Barry Goldwater over LBJ. Kentucky really isnt a Southern state; it behaves much more like a cross between a Southern and a Midwestern state. Theres a story we see through most of the so-called Solid South - a bloc of confederacy states that have voted pretty much as one since the Civil War: for the Democratic party through Kennedy, and for the Republicans since. (Incidentally, Kentucky is not considered part of the Solid South, and for good reason.) In each of those states, a lot of voters who had voted Democratic for decades suddenly found themselves agreeing with national Republican candidates, but the values of the candidates running under the Democratic party label at home were still very much what they were used to. The Democratic party continued to dominate state and local elections in these states for decades after theyd started reliably sending Republicans to Washington. Since the 1990s or so, that trend has weakened, and the Republicans have started taking over at every level at government. State Democratic parties have weakened considerably or in some of the worst cases (read Mississippi) have all but crumbled. Kentucky Democrats do not seem to have gotten the memo. Unlike some of its southern neighbors, Kentuckys state Democratic party is very much alive and well. It is fully aware of the conservative lean of the Kentucky people and therefore plays considerably to the right of the national party - and does so with great success. Popular Democratic governor Steve Beshear has held his office since 2003, the Democrats hold a solid majority in the state House of Representatives, and registered Kentucky Democrats overwhelmingly outnumber registered Republicans - 57% to 37%. Some of those voters seem to be Democrats in name only, however, and the state Republican party is far from impotent; they hold a supermajority in the state Senate. In fact, among the states with bicameral legislatures (most of them), Im not sure if any have a bigger difference in control from one house of congress to the next. (Say the word if you know something I dont.) The gist: while Kentucky tends to prefer Republicans in Washington, there are a lot of voters used to checking blue boxes and red boxes on the same ballot. The Democratic label is nowhere near as poisonous in Kentucky as it is in the true southern states. While any national Democratic candidate is going to face some headwinds in Kentucky, the right candidate more than stands a chance. Given the Republican Partys abysmal approval rating (mid-30s) and the battered image of their incumbent, the Republicans cannot take this seat for granted. In fact, the two likely general election candidates are currently polling neck and neck. A few others have either considered running or have thrown their names in the ring (Ashley Judd, of all people, seriously thought about running for the Democratic nomination but concluded fairly quickly that it would be a lost cause.), but they probably wont gain any traction; there are three major contenders for Kentuckys class II Senate seat. - Mitch McConnell (R), incumbent A household name to pretty much anyone who follows politics at all, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will be defending the seat he’s held since 1985. His first two elections were hotly contested, so Mitch is no stranger to difficult contests, but he hasn’t faced a close election since 1990. He is unlikely to be so fortunate in 2014. McConnell has, fairly or not, been tagged with several labels since becoming Minority Leader, most of them unflattering. His infamous, The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president, quote has been used to paint McConnell and his party as sore losers and childish obstructionists with no real plan for the country. The Democrats have showcased McConnell as the face of a Republican party out of touch with America, and that image has stuck. And paradoxically, hes been painted as a traitor who sells out to the Democrats (i.e. compromises when something absolutely has to be done) over the deals hes helped draft for preventing the Bush tax cuts from completely expiring, raising the debt ceiling, and reopening the government after the recent shutdown. Consequently, neither his base nor swing voters have a positive opinion of McConnell. His approval rating is an abysmal 36% - any incumbent under 50% is typically considered vulnerable. Aside: While I am a Democrat and am definitely rooting for his loss, I feel a little sorry for McConnell. The one-term president quote, as so many damaging political quotes are, was taken horribly out of context (washingtonpost/blogs/fact-checker/post/when-did-mcconnell-say-he-wanted-to-make-obama-a-one-term-president/2012/09/24/79fd5cd8-0696-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_blog.html). Unlike some of his more firebrand colleagues, he is willing to sit down and actually do the work of governing when push comes to shove, even when it means he doesnt get everything he wants. Dont read me wrong: a lot of the gridlock and obstructive tactics used by the Republican party over the last six years have McConnells name all over them, and I absolutely cant stand a lot of his positions. I dont, however, feel hes quite as bad as hes painted. Hes of a lot better senator than many of his colleagues. End of aside. Thankfully for McConnell, he has enough cash on hand to run ten PR campaigns to improve his image while still beating his opponents bloody with negative ads. While his primary challenger is a wealthy businessman who will be able to self-finance at least part of his campaign and his likely Democratic opponent is slightly outrunning him in fundraising at present, he entered this election season with more than $11 million in cash on hand - an absolutely massive amount of money for the relatively cheap Kentucky ad market. Its a safe bet that he will have the best campaign money can buy. McConnell is arguably one of the most skilled politicians in Washington, and he wont let that money go to waste. He is also is a safe, familiar name to Kentuckians, and tradition alone is probably going to net him some votes. All of that plus Kentuckys preference for Republicans in Washington are the reasons hes not dead in the water. - Matt Bevins (R), primary challenger McConnell faces a serious primary challenger in businessman Matt Bevin, who is, in his own words, running because he does not think McConnell is conservative enough. This is a theme that has been played out several times over the last few election cycles: the vocal ultra-conservative wing of the Republican party calls for the ouster of any Republicans who aren’t completely toeing the party line – and with a respectable rate of success. However, while they have gotten their heroes Ted Cruz and Rand Paul into the Senate, in other cases they’ve snubbed a moderate candidate virtually assured reelection for a very conservative candidate who went on to lose – sometimes badly. It’s hard to say which category Bevin would fall into if he were nominated. The only major general election poll including Bevin to date – and it’s from July – suggests that Kentuckians don’t know him well enough to have much of an opinion of him, but his status as a generic Republican was enough for him to poll ahead of his Democratic rival. However, there’s still plenty of time for Bevin to open his mouth and say something ridiculous enough to kill his chances. McConnell may be vulnerable to Bevin’s challenge. McConnells 36% approval rating among Kentuckians is disastrously low number, and the Tea Party contingent has already made a lot of noise about McConnell being unacceptably willing to compromise with the Democrats. A lot of Kentucky Republican primary voters are going to be more than open to the idea of a new candidate. Nonetheless, early polls do not look so good for Bevin. The most recent poll from August shows him being crushed by McConnell in the primary 68/21, but that lead will almost certainly narrow as Bevin gets his name out. Other Tea Party insurgents like Ted Cruz and Deb Fischer have started out with similar deficits only to soar in the polls as Republican primary voters began to realize that these virtual unknowns were saying everything they wanted to hear, unlike the establishment candidates. However, the incumbents who have taken these primary challengers seriously early have tended to survive (see Orrin Hatch, Utah 2012). And McConnell is too savvy not to take Bevin seriously. He already has ads out attacking both Bevin and his likely Democratic opponent, and he’s sparing no expense in ensuring those ads are as effective as they can be. - Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) The stars are about as aligned for the popular Kentucky Secretary of State as they could possibly be for a Kentucky Democrat. She faces a deeply unpopular incumbent. She is the daughter of former Kentucky Democratic chairman and state representative Jerry Lundergan, which grants her name recognition, coat-tail loyalty, and every in into the Kentucky Democratic machine than anyone could ever ask for. She is attractive, and McConnell looks like a shriveled turtle. She has the full support of the state party, and her primary challengers are unlikely to gain any traction. McConnell, on the other hand, is facing a serious primary challenge that is likely to leave him, if not drained of cash, at least a little wounded. Lundergan Grimes’ approval ratings are fairly good, while McConnell’s are miserable. And while she is unlikely to catch up to McConnell’s massive stockpile, she is at least for the moment raising more campaign funds than he is. The chief headwind against her, of course, is that she is a Democrat. As mentioned before, Kentuckians solidly prefer a generic Republican over a generic Democrat in Washington. For the moment, anyway, her fortunate position, McConnells bad image, and Kentuckys Republican lean all seem to be roughly cancelling each other out. She stands a decent chance, but her victory is not anywhere close to assured. It is hard to say what the next year will bring, but I believe McConnell will survive his primary challenge. It will not be a painless process, however, and he will probably emerge a bit damaged by it. Some number of Tea Party voters will rally behind Bevins to the point where they will just stay home in the general election rather than vote for McConnell. (That number may end up being relatively small, but it wont be zero, and in an election as close as this one is likely to be, it might matter.) This race will attract more national attention than probably any other this cycle. On the Republican side, they cant but realize how damaging it will be to the national brand for one of the top leaders of the party to be sent home, and they will do everything in their power to keep that from happening. Even if his constituents are not, his fellow Republican senators seem to be united behind McConnell; if there are any factions among his Republican colleagues in the senate who want McConnell to go, I dont know about them. If for any reason his personal resources arent enough, the most powerful Republican in the senate will have all of the national party resources - both in money and in personnel - for the asking. As for the Democrats, given the realistic opportunity to garrote one of the top names of the Republican party, the national party is going to pump heaps of time, attention, and money into this race. Fundraising e-mails will be going out to Democrats across the nation, and the money will pour in. The Democrats best operatives and consultants will be at least part time working to support Lundergan Grimes candidacy. Given his lingering popularity in the state, I will be very surprised if President Clinton does not stump for Lundergan Grimes. And for the same reasons, Obama is likely to stay away. In fact, McConnell will undoubtedly spend a lot of effort trying to paint Lundergan Grimes as a flunky to Obama, and she will be doing everything she can to distance herself from him. This is going to be an ugly campaign. Theres one thing that I will predict with certainty: by the end of it, all of Kentucky - and probably a good part of the nation - will be sick of this race. Several pundits are rating this race as Leans or Likely Republican, banking on Kentuckys partisan trends to ultimately prevail. I believe they are repeating their mistakes from the last election cycle, and that this is race is a true Toss Up. The polls are neck and neck, and some are showing Lundergan Grimes a bit ahead before this horse-race has even started. The parallels to the North Dakota 2012 race are obvious. Practically everyone wrote that contest off as obviously going to the Republicans, given the states overwhelming political leanings. Only one small polling firm could be bothered to poll the race this early in the cycle, and it found Democrat Heidi Heitkamp - retired, but like Lunderman Grimes a popular former figure - running slightly ahead of her opponent. It was dismissed as a fluke, and the consensus was that party loyalty would prevail in the end. When the big names finally started bothering to poll the race closer to the election, they found that this supposedly shoo-in for the Republicans truly was a very close race. Ultimately, Heitkamp narrowly prevailed in the biggest upset of 2012. Unlike the North Dakota race, this one will be very high profile, and well almost certainly have a lot more polling than we did there. Im frankly surprised there hasnt been more already.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 23:39:58 +0000
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