Lunsford leads McConnell in new poll

U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Lunsford (D-Louisville): Politicker Photo

A poll conducted in the immediate aftermath of last Tuesday's primary election shows Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Bruce Lunsfrod leading Republican Senator Mitch McConnell by five percent, a stark contrast to earlier match-up polls giving the four-term incumbent a significant lead in the race.

Lunsford pulls 49 percent of the vote to McConnell's 44 percent among 500 likely voters contacted by Rasmussen Reports on May 22.

Four percent of voters were not sure and four percent selected "other." The margin of error on the poll is plus or minus 4.5 percent.

Coinciding with earlier speculation that Lunsford could fare well among voters who would split their tickets between presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), and the Democratic Senate nominee, Lunsford.

While McCain holds a solid lead of twenty-five points over Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in Kentucky, according to the poll, 28 percent of McCain's support would defect from the GOP to Lunsford in the down-ballot race.

McConnell's campaign has already begun to try and tie Lunsford to Obama - saying he is running against the "Lunsford-Obama plan for America" last week.

Obama proved to be exceptionally poorly supported in certain areas of the state in last Tuesday's primary, losing to primary opponent Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) by thirty-five points statewide, but garnering less than 20 percent support in wide swaths of western and eastern Kentucky.

Public sentiment McConnell in the Rasmussen survey do show a slight bump from "approval" numbers released on May 13 by the Lexington Herald-Leader. McConnell was shown up 48 to 36 percent against a then-hypothetical Lunsford general election candidacy, but the incumbent garnered the same amount of "strongly approve" or "approve" ratings as he did election support.

The Rasmussen numbers show 52 percent of voters have a "very favorable" or "somewhat favorable" view of McConnell compared to 42 percent with a "very unfavorable" or "somewhate unfavorable" perspective. Lunsford grabbed 47 percent in the former category and 43 percent in the latter, while 10 percent were "not sure" of their view of the Democratic candidate.

Six percent were "not sure" about McConnell.

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