Roundup: Dueling polls; TV and Internet ads from NRA

One day's roundup rolls into another, the news is so heavy . . .

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  Dueling polls: One taken Sept. 8-12 for the Reuters news service by Ipsos shows Sen. Mitch McConnell leading Alison Lundergan Grimes 46 percent to 42 percent, with 5 percent picking another candidate and 6 percent saying they didn't know how they would vote or refusing to say. The poll report includes an interesting and colorful word cloud illustrating verbatim responses (click image for larger version). A more recent survey Sept. 13-16 by Florida-based Gravis Marketing for Human Events, a conservative magazine, showed McConnell leading 52 to 42. A Gravis poll in July had them tied at 45.
• The Reuters-Ipsos poll showed that a marginal plurality of registered voters, 38 percent, identified themselves as Republicans, to 35 percent identifying as Democrats. That's unusual for a Kentucky poll, but this could turn out to be an election that realigns some voters' party identification, especially because of President Obama's unpopularity.
• Richard Cowan of Reuters explains how McConnell has tried to soften his "dour public persona."
• Nick Storm of cn|2 examines how Grimes might still be able to pull off an upset.
• Joe Sonka of Insider Louisville reports in a tweet that the National Rifle Association is spending $220,000 on "new Internet advertising" in the race. An NRA television ad against Grimes is running on Lexington stations.
• In an editorial article for The Courier-Journal, Grimes indentifies "six issues she'll tackle on Day 1." The Louisville newspaper says (only in its print edition, at this writing) that McConnell "has been offered an opportunity to write a similar piece."
• Martha Layne Collins, who was Kentucky's first and only woman governor (1979-83), is promoting the idea of Grimes as the state's first woman senator as chair of a group called Women for Alison. Collins recently did a recorded call for Grimes.