Roundup: McConnell's side nears 2-1 edge in TV outlay as poll shows him leading by 4 pts.; Patterson gets 7%

The biggest wire service takes a look at the race, and there's a new poll . . .

• Sen. Mitch McConnell has been using President Obama's obvious unpopularity in Kentucky to his advantage, and he and his allies outspent Grimes on television "by a nearly 2-1 margin," reports David Espo of The Associated Press in an overview of the race. He datelined it Harlan, one of the stops on McConnell's coal tour last week, in which the senator sought "the support of coal miners and their neighbors in Eastern Kentucky, a region he split with his Democratic challenger in most recent race in 2008. That year, Obama got only 41 percent of the vote statewide, a number that dropped to 38 percent in 2012," Espo notes. "McConnell rarely mentions Grimes by name, preferring instead to campaign against Obama and 'those people,' an undefined group he says "are not the kind of people we have here in Kentucky."
• Alison Lundergan Grimes released a new web ad today that emphasizes her focus on jobs. The ad includes footage from her rallies last week with President Bill Clinton in Hazard and Lexington and shows the enthusiasm of crowds and their embrace of the issue, especially in Eastern Kentucky. Clinton picks up the cudgel that McConnell gave Grimes: "One candidate says it’s ‘not my job’ to create jobs. The other candidate, from the get-go of her campaign, put out a Kentucky Jobs Action Plan. And it’s good, I’ve read it."
  
• Libertarian David Patterson's filing for the Nov. 4 ballot could hurt McConnell by attracting Republicans who voted for Matt Bevin in the May primary, Michael Patrick Leahy writes for Breitbart.com, a popular, conservative website: "It's conceivable that Grimes could ride pro-Bevin defectors to Patterson to victory. . . . But for the Libertarian candidate to receive 75,000 to 125,000 votes from Tea Party supporters will require more than a mere endorsement from the UKTP," the United Kentucky Tea Party, an informal coalition that backed Bevin in May. "Such a result will require a boots-on-the-ground door-knocking effort, and despite the lingering hostility among Kentucky Tea Party members towards McConnell, that level of organization has not yet been reached." Polls indicate that Patterson takes votes about equally from McConnell and Grimes.
• McConnell leads Grimes 44 percent to 40 percent among self-described likely voters, with 9 percent undecided and 7 percent for Patterson, in an automated telephone poll taken Aug. 7-10 by Public Policy Polling, a North Carolina firm that usually works for Democrats but averages only a slight Democratic lean in its results. The poll showed Grimes's name recognition at an all-time high, but skewing negative, with her job approval at 41 percent and disapproval at 45 percent. That may reflect McConnell's edge in TV advertising, which has attacked Grimes and linked her with Obama, whose job rating in the poll was 32 percent approve, 63 percent disapprove. However, the race remains up for grabs because McConnell's job rating is 37 percent approve and 54 percent disapprove; 11 percent of women, a key group for Grimes, are undecided; and the poll's error margin was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. For the PPP release, click here; for the poll results, go here.

McConnell presses Grimes to say how she feels about Obmacare but won't bite on questions about Kynect

At his first post-primary press conference, Sen. Mitch McConnell pressed Alison Lundergan Grimes to clarify her position on the federal health-care reform law but wouldn't say whether his plan to "start over" on the issue would include shutting down the state's successful health-insurance exchange.

"She's been dodging it for a year," McConnell said Friday. "She's been in this race for a year. It's time for her to answer the question, "How do you feel about it?" Wednesday, Grimes twice refused to say how she would have voted on the 2010 law if she had been a senator.

McConnell speaks at half-hour press conference.
(Associated Press photo by Timothy D. Easley)

The topic arose when McConnell was asked to reply to Democratic assertions that his pledge to "pull it out root and branch" would end the law's insurance coverage for 415,000 Kentuckians through the state exchange.

The senator didn't answer directly. "This is another good reason why the two of us ought to have a real debate," he said, recalling his post-primary proposal for three Lincoln-Douglas-style debates by the middle of September.

Asked if he would dismantle the state exchanges created under the law, McConnell said he would have created a national market -- "tear down the walls, the 50 separate silos in which health insurance is sold" -- passed medical-malpractice reform, and allowed small businesses to "band together in this international [sic] market."

Asked again, specifically, if he would shut down Kentucky's exchange, which is branded as Kynect, he said "I think that's unconnected to my comments about the overall question here."

While polls have shown the law to be unpopular in Kentucky, a small plurality of voters in a recent poll had a favorable opinion of Kynect. Last fall, the Kentucky Health Issues Poll found that people who weren't sure how the law would affect them and their families had an unfavorable opinion of it, while those who said they did know how it would affect them had a favorable opinion.

In his overall comments about the law, McConnell said a Congressional Budget Office study has predicted that full implementation of the law would still leave 30 million Americans uninsured, covering only 10 million. "What is the cost-benefit ratio of this kind of destruction, this kind of impact, on 16 percent of the economy?" he asked. "The people of this state are entitled to know the answer to the question, 'How do you feel about it?' and I think my opponent has tried to dodge that question."

Asked if repealing the law would be his top priority as majority leader if Republicans take control of the Senate, he said he wasn't ready to say because he's not in the majority yet, "but I think it's reasonable to assume that would be a high priority for us." He noted that Obama will be president until January 2017, an implicit acknowledgement that Obama would veto any repeal and two-thirds votes of the House and Senate would be required to override him.

Other topics

Asked if he had reached out to defeated primary foe Matt Bevin since they talked Tuesday night, McConnell said he had not, but said he wasn't worried about unifying the party. He noted a November 2010 exit poll that showed 91 percent of Republicans voted for Rand Paul after a divisive primary.

However, that survey polled only people who voted. Sen. Rand Paul, asked why a tea-party supporter shouldn't stay home from the polls this fall, replied, "I think the people in the tea party will come out when they realize what a disaster it would be to have Ms. Grimes." Earlier, he said, "I think the party will pull together very quickly."

Grimes is trying to get the votes of Bevin supporters with an "open letter" to them. Asked what he thought of that, McConnell said, "I hope she'll spend all of her time trying to get Republicans to vote for her."

McConnell, GOP push to unify party, but Bevin makes clear he and his backers are still smarting

Many tea party types around the nation embraced Sen. Mitch McConnell after the primary, "but one key person was still holding out: Matt Bevin," writes Manu Raju of Politico, in a story headlined "GOP's task: Crush tea party, then court it."

And Raju has a quote from Bevin suggesting that an endorsement won't come anytime soon: “You can’t punch people in the face, punch people in the face, punch people in the face, and ask them to have tea and crumpets with you and think it’s all good. Life doesn’t work that way.” In the interview, Bevin didn't go beyond his election-night stand, which was that he wouldn't endorse Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes.

Matt Bevin holds newborn Mary Halston Brandon at the Fountain
 Run BBQ Festival Saturday, May 17. (Photo from Getty Images)

Bevin told Politico that McConnell has a “tremendous challenge before him” to win support of many Bevin voters, and is going to “have a hard time” winning. He said and there is little he can do to move his supporters into the GOP tent because he’s “not leading a bunch of mindless sheep. Some will forget [about attacks by McConnell and his allies]. Some will forget they are the enemy. But some will not. This race is so close, that there is no real margin for error there. There really isn’t.”

McConnell told Politico that he was “not concerned” about uniting the party, and noted the support he has already received from national tea party activists. “We’ve been down this path before,” he told Raju. “We’re going to be able to put the party together.”

Raju notes that traditional Republicans "have beat back tea party forces in a spate of bitter primaries across the country. Now their chances of winning the Senate could hinge on winning the tea party back." But he says they have "a ways to go to ensure conservative activists don’t sit out the fall elections or — even worse — pull the lever for the Democrat as a protest vote. If enough sit out of neck-and-neck races — in states like Kentucky, Georgia and North Carolina — it could be enough to tilt the outcome of a close affair."

Sens. Paul and McConnell (Washington Post photo)

In Kentucky, the public post-election push for party unity begins Friday, as McConnell campaigns with Sen. Rand Paul and has his "first meeting with the local media since his primary victory," Raju writes. "McConnell and Paul also are expected to speak at the Kentucky Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner in early June in Louisville. And in an interview, Paul said he’s planning to stump for McConnell in late July in Northern Kentucky, an area of the state with pockets of rabidly conservative voters who aren’t enamored with the 29-year Senate veteran."

Paul told Politico that “It just takes time” to bring the defeated into the tent: “I think people are mad at first if you work real hard for your candidate and you lose . . . but over time, you have to weigh getting someone who supports President Obama’s policies vs. getting someone who supports Republican ideas.”

Republican leaders "are reaching out to local activists who are skeptical of the GOP establishment and hoping time will heal the wounds with their primary adversaries after a scorched-earth campaign," Raju reports. "They’re also employing the time-honored tactic of shame."

“Anybody who says they will vote for a Democrat as a result of losing the Republican primary is not a Republican, and they are not a conservative,” Assistant Republican Leader John Cornynof Texas, told Politico. “I think, obviously, party unity is important after primaries, but our tradition has not been a party of sore losers.”

Roundup for May 22: Grimes mum on look-back Obamacare vote, calls for vets secretary to quit

Lots of news and commentary today:

• Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes "twice refused to say whether she would have voted for President Barack Obama's signature health care law" as she kicked off her general-election campaign in Beattyville, Adam Beam reports for The Associated Press.
• Grimes said in Beattyville that senators should bring jobs to the states they represent. The Beattyville Enterprise said Grimes was replying to the same question it asked Sen. Mitch McConnell April 18. Then, he said it was not his job, but a state responsibility.
• Grimes and McConnell jumped into the biggest national controversy of the moment, the scandal in Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals. After McConnell gave a Senate floor speech saying President Obama should get as engaged as he was when the health-care website largely failed, Grimes called for Veterans Secretary Eric Shinseki to resign: "I don't see how that breach of trust with our veterans can be repaired if the current leadership stays in place." Monday, McConnell said "The management team needs to be changed."
• Dana Bash of CNN reports that Senate control "may rest in the hands of women candidates," and "In no place is gender more at play than in Kentucky."
• Executive Director Shae Hopkins tries to get KET in the mix for debates with a letter asking the candidates to consider "the only statewide broadcaster, accessible to all Kentuckians."
• The Courier-Journal's Joe Gerth examines "key weaknesses" that the nominees need to address: Grimes in the state's two coalfields and McConnell among Tea Party voters.
• Grimes gets three Pinocchios (out of four) from The Washington Post's Fact Checker for saying McConnell "quadrupled his net worth on the backs of hardworking Kentuckians." The wealth came from "money that his wife inherited," Glenn Kessler writes.
• Post columnist E.J. Dionne steps back and takes an interesting overview of Kentucky and the race: "From the mountains to the gentle bluegrass, this normally civilized state was transformed Tuesday night into the staging ground for a merciless war over everything that has gone wrong in American politics during the past 5½ years." Worth a read.
• A Post video introduces viewers to "the latest women to win their primaries and are vying to join the growing contingent of women in the Senate," including Grimes.
• McConnell "faces his biggest test yet," writes the Post's "She the People" columnist Nia-Malika Henderson, saying Grimes uses "what might be called blue-collar feminism" with "a Southern swagger."
• University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato writes, "Despite the results of recent polls, there are several reasons to be skeptical about Democrats’ chances of winning either the Kentucky or the Georgia seat in November. Kentucky hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1992, and Barack Obama lost the state by 16 points in 2008 and 23 points in 2012." Sabato's Crystal Ball still rates the Kentucky outcome as "likely Republican."
• Scott Wartman of The Kentucky (Cincinnati) Enquirer lists the top five surprises of the primary: no tea-party wave, Matt Bevin carried only two counties (Scott and Pendleton), Tea Party groups got on board Team Mitch; turnout in Northern Kentucky was low; and Grimes' vote nearly equaled Bevin's and McConnell's combined. The last two aren't really surprising.
• Bevin "stopped short of saying he would vote for McConnell come November," notes Nick Storm of cn|2's "Pure Politics."
• Dan McLaughlin writes on the Red State blog that Bevin's loss shows how the Tea Party needs more experienced candidates, not "political rookies." An editorial in The Wall Street Journal says Bevin and other Tea Party candidates lost primaries "because they were inferior candidates who differed little from their GOP opponents on policy but seemed less capable of winning in November."