Poll shows McConnell over 50%, another gives GOP apparent historic advantage in voter ID in Ky.

A rolling roundup as we go into the weekend . . .

• Sen. Mitch McConnell leads Alison Lundergan Grimes 52 percent to 44 percent in a Rasmussen Reports poll of 1,000 likely voters taken Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 15-16. The automated telephone poll's margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. Only 3 percent were undecided, and 2 percent picked another candidate. "Among the 24% who still could change their minds, the candidates are tied at 41% apiece, with 17% opting for a third-party candidate or undecided," the poll report says. "The incumbent is viewed favorably by 49% of all Kentucky voters and unfavorably by 47%. . . . For Grimes, favorables are 46% and unfavorable 50%." In past elections, Rasmussen's results have leaned slightly Republican.
• FiveThirtyEight.com cited the poll in raising the changes of a McConnell victory to 78 percent from 73 percent. "A Grimes upset is still plausible, but it’s getting less so by the day," Harry Enten writes.
• 
  Kentucky Democrats got some bad news from The Gallup Organization, which revealed an apparently historic advantage for Republicans in party identification among Kentucky voters. "When faced with tough choice of voting for either the very unpopular Mitch McConnell or giving Democrats another seat in the Senate, the people of Kentucky seem to have finally accepted they primarily identify with the GOP," writes Jon Walker of Firedoglake.
• Both candidates are now running television commercials about their work with sexual assault and domestic violence. McConnell went first; Grimes's ad is about the legislation she got passed to allow removal of victims' addresses from voter rolls.
• Former president Bill Clinton will campaign with Grimes Tuesday in Owensboro and Paducah. McConnell will be on a bus tour through Eastern Kentucky Monday through Wednesday. Grimes will be in several of the same counties tomorrow (Saturday).