Rand Paul has expanded his lead in the Kentucky Senate race even further over the last week and is headed for a blowout win. His margin over Jack Conway is 55-40.
Kentucky is obviously a conservative state. Conway's ability to win was always going to depend on getting a lot of folks who supported John McCain in 2008 to vote Democratic for the Senate this time around. The most amazing finding on this final poll is that Rand Paul is actually picking up more Obama voters (15%) than Conway is McCain voters (9%). That's the formula for a landslide.
Over the last month of the campaign this went from being a relatively competitive race to a not so competitive one. That didn't have a ton to do with Rand Paul- his favorability in early September was 45/40 and now it's 48/43, basically unchanged. The shift is more a reflection of Jack Conway's image with Kentucky voters being shattered in the closing days. Seven weeks ago his favorability split evenly with 36% of voters rating him positively and negatively alike. Now he's very unpopular with only 34% of voters saying they like him and 52% expressing unfavorable opinions toward him.
In the end Rand Paul did not have any trouble reunifying his party after the Republican primary- GOP voters are going for him by an 88-8 margin. Conway meanwhile is bleeding Democratic support. He's getting only 61% of the vote from his own party while a full 34% say they plan to vote for Paul. Paul also has a 48-40 advantage with independents.
Barack Obama's approval rating in Kentucky is 31% with 62% of voters disapproving of him. This race may have been a stretch for Dems even with a perfect campaign and candidate. And in the end they had neither.
Full results here
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