Exit poll shows Grimes won women by 5 points, but McConnell won men by 19, and independents by 15

The exit poll in the Senate race showed that women favored Alison Lundergan Grimes by 51 percent to 46 percent, but men supported Sen. Mitch McConnell by an even larger margin, 58-39.

"That was the key to the McConnell victory in a race that quite rankly many people thought would be close," John King said on CNN.

But perhaps just as indicative of the outcome was the poll result among the 19 percent of voters who said in the exit poll that they are independents. Among them, McConnell won 54-39.

McConnell's leadership position and potential also figured into the vote. Asked if party control of the Senate was important to their vote, 86 percent said yes. McConnell carried that group, 55-43.

Grimes carried self-described moderates 52-44, but McConnell carried conservatives 87-10. Grimes carried liberals 81-16, but they were only 19 percent of the electorate.

Grimes ran hard on raising the minimum wage, and she appeared to win among people with annual incomes under $30,000, 53 percent to 41 percent. But McConnell won all other income groups. When grouped above and below $50,000, voters under that figure were evenly divided.

Grimes apparently carried only one age group, those voters 25 to 29, and her 52-43 margin among them was not certain because they only made up 9 percent of the electorate. McConnell's best age group was voters in their 40s, which he won 63-34.

One of the best predictors of a person's vote by party is how often they attend religious services, and the national pattern was reflected Tuesday. McConnell ran away with those who attend at least weekly (they made up 48 percent of the electorate) while Grimes appeared to win among occasional worshippers and the 13 percent who said they never attend services.

Among the approximately half of the electorate who identify as white evangelicals or born-again Christians, McConnell won 68-30. Grimes won the rest 55-43.

Gun-owning households (64 percent of the electorate) went for McConnell 6630, while those without guns went for Grimes 61-37.

McConnell won all the regions identified by the poll except his home Jefferson County, which he lost 57-41. The poll report on CNN did not give the margin of error for such sub-samples or the overall poll.

McConnell's main theme was to tie Grimes to President Obama. King noted that 62 percent in the poll said they were angry or dissatisfied with the Obama administration, and McConnell won that group, 80-17. Grimes carried those who were satisfied or enthusiastic, 84-14. Forty percent said Here's a video of King's report on the poll's preliminary results, some of which vary from the final numbers:

Both campaigns attack each other's ads on issues of voting rights, women's rights, student loans

As usually happens in the final two weeks of a tough race, both sides are drawing fire for some of their advertising.

Sen. Mitch McConnell's campaign is expressing outrage at an Alison Lundergan Grimes radio commercial on which former state Sen. Georgia Powers of Louisville accuses the senator of "trying to take the right to vote away from black people," Sam Youngman reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. He notes that another ad on black-oriented radio said "McConnell has been leading the Republican effort to take away our voting rights."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/10/22/3495526_grimes-accuses-mcconnell-of-trying.html?sp=/99/322/&rh=1#storylink=cpy

Youngman reports, "McConnell spokeswoman Allison Moore called the ad 'disgusting.' "This is the kind of ad an unscrupulous, losing candidate may have considered running 50 years ago that we all collectively hoped was left in the past,' Moore said. Grimes' spokeswoman Charly Norton said the ads are based on McConnell's 2002 vote against extending voting rights to felons who have completed their sentences and legislation he introduced in 2007 to require identification issued by the government to vote." Norton cited a recent Government Accountability Office report saying such laws reduced turnout among African Americans.

Grimes's campaign is circulating a column by Steve Benen of MSNBC accusing McConnell of hypocrisy for running a TV ad with several young women saying Grimes "wants me to think that I’m not good enough. That I couldn’t get a job, unless Washington passed more laws. That I can’t graduate college, without raising your taxes. She wants me to believe that strong women and strong values are incompatible. She thinks I’ll vote for the candidate who looks like me. Rather than the one who represents me."

Benen writes, "This is the sort of ad a politician runs if he’s convinced voters just aren’t very bright. Part of the problem, of course, is that McConnell is a poor messenger for a weak message. He is, after all, the same senator who opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay [Act], voted repeatedly to kill the Violence Against Women Act, rejected the Paycheck Fairness Act, and voted to restrict contraception access." Actually, McConnell voted for the Violence Against Women Act but against a recent version that would have expanded its coverage to immigrants and some incidents on Indian reservations. He said the Paycheck Fairness Act was unnecessary because federal law already band sex discrimination and the new legislation would have encouraged too much litigation.

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).

New ads: McConnell uses activist's undercover videos; Grimes features laid-off Mayfield tire-plant worker

Rounding up developments and comments the day before the debate . . .

• Both major candidates have new television commercials, making some of their toughest attacks yet in attempts to be the lesser of two evils.
• Sen. Mitch McConnell is using conservative activist James O'Keefe's undercover video of some Grimes supporters to argue that she is lying about her support for coal. The ad uses a headline saying the comments in one video came from "Grimes' staff," but University of Kentucky student Anthony Pendleton found no proof of that; The Courier-Journal's Joe Gerth dubbed the comments "speculation."
• Wayne Chambers, who worked at the defunct General Tire plant in Mayfield, says in a Grimes ad that McConnell did nothing to help workers there and "voted three times for tax loopholes that make it easy to ship overseas. Why should we lose our jobs and let Mitch McConnell keep his?" Those tax breaks are for any moving expenses, domestic or foreign, and fact-checkers have said such charges are misleading.
• Lexington Herald-Leader political writer Sam Youngman writes that the candidates "have done a fair job of lowering expectations for how they might perform against each other" in Monday night's KET debate. "McConnell and Grimes traded dueling disasters in the days leading up to Monday's showdown, with McConnell being blasted by Democrats for a "needlessly angry" performance on Kentucky Sports Radio and Grimes going viral as political analysts of all stripes lined up to mock her refusal to say whether she voted for President Barack Obama."
• 
  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/10/11/3475921/a-week-of-stumbles-lowers-expectations.html?sp=/99/164/#storylink=cpy
• A federal judge has denied Libertarian Party candidate David Patterson's demand that he be allowed into the debate, and the party says it doesn't have the money to appeal, Adam Beam reports for The Associated Press.
• Sahil Kapur of Talking Points Memo has a short profile of Patterson.
• C-J columnist and UK professor Al Cross looks toward the debate and offers "a rundown of the flim-flam lines to watch for, the facts that counter them, and the questions the senator and his challenger should be answering."
• Gerth rounds up the candidates' positions on five major issues: the economy, coal and the environment, foreign policy, immigration and pay equity.
• Youngman says on WKYT-TV, "Our poll shows Alison Lundergan Grimes surging with conservatives, which is sort of a stretch to wrap your head around." Youngman was interviewed for the station's "Newsmakers" show, which airs again at 10 a.m. on CWKYT.
• Grimes and McConnell attended the Logan County Tobacco and Heritage Festival in Russellville, WBKO-TV of Bowling Green reports; Grimes drew a large crowd to a labor rally in Paducah and noted McConnell's opposition to raising the minimum wage, extending unemployment benefits and allowing refinancing of student loans. At both sites, she was asked about her refusal to say whether she voted for President Obama. She told The Paducah Sun, "I'm the (state's) chief election official, and protecting the sanctity of the ballot box is what I was elected to do by the people of Kentucky. I don't believe it's relevant to this election. Instead of asking who I voted for, we should be talking about what I will be voting for in Washington."
  
• "Alison Lundergan Grimes Is Running the Worst Senate Campaign of the Year," reads The New Republic's headline over Jason Zengerle's story, which starts with the Obama-vote flap. "Grimes’s refusal to say who she voted for is emblematic of her entire campaign, which, for the last 15 months, has been waged in a defensive crouch—evading and obfuscating at every turn," Zengerle writes. "While Grimes may have denied McConnell the ammo to convince Kentuckians to vote against her, she hasn’t given the citizens of the commonwealth many good reasons to vote for her."

Fox News Poll has McConnell up 4 points; he surprises talk-show host but won't give on some issues

Rounding up just a few of the many things flying around in the race . . .

• A poll taken for Fox News Oct. 4-7 shows Sen. Mitch McConnell leading Alison Lundergan Grimes 45 percent to 41 percent, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, which applies to both numbers. It showed McConnell leading among men 48-43 and Grimes leading among women 45-37, numbers that don't add up to the overall result unless a lot more men were polled -- which does not seem to be the case, because the poll memo says the error margins for the gender samples are identical. The poll used live interviewers; most polls in the race he used recorded voices and push-button responses. For the results, click here.
• After being badgered by Kentucky Sports Radio's Matt Jones for two weeks for not appearing on his show, McConnell placed a surprise call to the host Wednesday and "had a series of sharp exchanges," report Erica Peterson and Joseph Lord of WFPL. McConnell refused to say if he believed in global warming, and wouldn't comment on same-sex marriage except to say twice that "Marriage should be between one man and one woman." For the story, which covers Grimes's positions in an earlier KSR interview and includes a link to a recording to the conversation, click here.
• Jones said after the 10-minute conversation that McConnell's campaign had said he would appear and it was only a matter of working out the date, then wouldn't return calls. "They heard that I might ask difficult questions and they just didn't do it," he said. Jones said on MSNBC's "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" tonight that most of his listeners probably support McConnell and sent word to him that he should be on the show. Jones appeared on TV with Joe Sonka of Insider Louisville, a journalist who is generally critical of McConnell. "Mitch showed a side his campaign probably wishes he hadn't showed to voters," Sonka said. "It was unnecessarily combative." Grimes was on the show last month. Jones said, "She seemed to sort of dodge questions."
• McConnell's position as Republican leader could be in jeopardy if his party doesn't take control of the Senate, Alexander Bolton reports for The Hill. Quoting an anonymous senator, Bolton reports, "Some members of the Senate Republican Conference would call for a re-evaluation of McConnell’s tactics, which the lawmaker described as maintaining total party unity in opposition to the Democratic agenda. . . . Conservative critics, on the other hand, argue that McConnell has been too accommodating and has not been fierce enough in waging the battle to repeal Obamacare or slash federal spending." But two other unnamed senators said McConnell would remain leader because there is no clear alternative and the job is a political target.

McConnell flips, says he would allow wage vote; his friends spend heavily on TV; Patterson sues KET

As we hit the five-weeks-to-election mark, Republicans raise the ante . . .

• Sen. Mitch McConnell released a one-minute television commercial today with a moving narration from Dr. Noelle Hunter of Morehead, whose daughter was abducted and taken to Africa by Hunter's ex-husband. Hunter says McConnell helped get her daughter back and took a personal interest in the case. The ad seems to appeal to women, whose votes have been more up for grabs than those of men. "The commercial seeks to both humanize McConnell and to show that he is effective — two central goals in the home stretch for an incumbent whose personal favorability ratings lag behind the state’s partisan lean," James Hohmann writes for Politico.
• Two political committees closely tied to McConnell "are poised to spend nearly $20 million on television advertisements to sway Kentucky voters," The Associated Press reports. "That's a staggering amount for a single race and a textbook example of the use of outside money in a tight contest. The effort began more than a year ago. But the majority of the advertising by the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition and Kentuckians for Strong Leadership has aired since McConnell and Democratic rival Alison Lundergan Grimes won primaries in mid-May. . . . A spokeswoman for Grimes says McConnell's millionaire and billionaire cronies have targeted the race more than any other, but predicts they will fail."
• Ronnie Ellis of CNHI News Service reports that McConnell said Friday that if he becomes majority leader "He will impose order on the way the Senate functions, reinvigorating the committee system and allowing members to file amendments and cast votes on bills," including an increase in the minimum wage. "Those comments might be viewed as contrary to others McConnell has made," including a meeting of conservative campaign contributors, where he said “We’re not going to be debating all these gosh darn proposals. That’s all we do in the Senate is vote on things like raising the minimum wage.” Ellis writes, "McConnell bristled when asked if those comments conflicted with his assurance that he’d restore order to the Senate." He cited a January speech in which he said senators' constituents should “know where we stand on the issues of the day, regardless of whether the majority party thinks those issues are worth debating or voting on.” Asked if that meant he’d allow votes on such things as the minimum wage, he replied “Yes.” That is "the exact opposite of what McConnell told the Koch brothers and their allies," MSNBC's Steve Benen writes.
• Today Alison Lundergan Grimes's campaign launched #AlisonCares, "a campaign initiative that will continue the campaign’s overwhelming online engagement with grassroots supporters," the campaign said. The candidate's husband, Andrew Grimes, does the first video. "Grimes' social media effort is an effort to reach out to non-traditional voters who don't get news and information from television and to let them know what she will do in the Senate if successful in ousting McConnell," writes Joe Gerth of The Courier-Journal. "It's pushing the ads to voters using Facebook and Twitter."
• Libertarian candidate David Patterson "has asked a federal judge to order Kentucky Educational Television to include him in the station's televised debate on Oct. 13," AP reports. "His lawsuit alleges KET officials are excluding him from the debate because of his political views—something the U.S. Supreme Court has said public broadcasters cannot do." AP tightened its qualification requirements in July, before Patterson gained enough signatures to get on the ballot but after his effort was publicized.

Where the race stands, six weeks before the election

By Anthony Pendleton and Megan Ingros

University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications

Information for this story was also contributed by Paige Hobbs, Cheyene Miller and Tyler Spanyer.

In less than two months, Kentucky voters will head to the polls to vote in the election for the U.S. Senate. Incumbent Republican Mitch McConnell is facing off against national Democratic newcomer Alison Lundergan Grimes.

This is arguably the most important and most-watched race in the nation. McConnell, 72, is the Senate minority leader, meaning he’s the top official of the party that has fewer members in the Senate. He is expected to become majority leader if the GOP wins enough seats to take control of the chamber.

Grimes, 35, would be Kentucky’s first female senator, and the state’s first Democratic senator since 1999. She is Kentucky's secretary of state – a position she won in 2011, her first elected public office.

             As the state’s chief election officer, Grimes got the legislature to approve changes to help overseas military voting, but the new law does not allow soldiers to vote electronically, as she wanted. Grimes also started a program that allows victims of domestic violence and sexual assault to "remove their addresses from public voter registration records in an attempt to stay safe from their abusers," as described by the Lexington Herald-Leader.

             McConnell says his leadership job puts him in the middle of every big decision in Washington, and that he will be even more powerful, as majority leader, if Republicans take control of the Senate. Grimes wants McConnell’s long history in Washington to be viewed as a liability, by painting him as an architect of Washington gridlock.  

             Over the course of his nearly 30-year Senate career, McConnell is best known nationally for his fights against limits on campaign contributions and spending. In a secretly recorded talk in June, he said the 2001 passage of the McCain-Feingold law limiting donations to political parties was “the worst day of my political life.”

             McConnell’s big issue in this race has been coal, blaming Environmental Protection Agency regulations for the loss of mining jobs in Eastern Kentucky. Disinterested observers have noted other factors, especially cheap natural gas that has displaced coal as an electric-generating fuel.

             McConnell has identified Grimes with President Obama, who is unpopular in Kentucky, based largely on her statement during her 2011 campaign that she supported the national Democratic platform. That seems to be working for him, as he has built leads in coal-bearing Eastern and Western Kentucky.

Grimes has replied with an ad saying “I’m not Barack Obama. I disagree with him on guns, coal and the EPA.” She also talks about coal miners’ safety and health, and her campaign has called McConnell’s record on those issues “deplorable.”

             The underlying issue is jobs. Kentucky’s unemployment rate remains higher than the rest of the country, and both candidates promise to promote job growth in the state.

Grimes has tried to make much of McConnell’s remark, when asked in Beattyville what he would do to bring jobs to Lee County, that “Economic development is a Frankfort issue. That is not my job.” McConnell has said he was in Beattyville to discuss jobs, and did so in a speech after the reporter left.

Grimes has focused on economic issues such as equal pay for women -- but has been unable to keep a clear lead among female voters – and raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour over three years, from $7.25.

McConnell, citing a report from the Congressional Budget Office, has said raising the wage to that level would cost half a million jobs, but has also said there might be circumstances in which it could be raised, after the economy improves more.

McConnell wants to repeal the federal health-care reform law while Grimes wants to delay its coverage mandate and make other changes. She says McConnell’s approach would risk the coverage of 521,000 people who have obtained it through the state exchange established under the law.

On immigration, Grimes supports the bipartisan, comprehensive reform bill that passed the Senate and would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. McConnell has said only legal residency is needed to attract needed workers, and immigration reform should be done through separate bills after the border is secure.

Grimes and McConnell have had one joint question-and-answer session, before directors of the Kentucky Farm Bureau Federation. KET will host a debate between them Oct. 13. The debate will not include Libertarian David Patterson, a 43 year-old Harrodsburg police officer who didn’t get his name on the ballot until August.

Poll for CNN shows McConnell leading 50-46%; he tells contributors the race is like 'a knife fight'

Roundup for Wednesday, Sept. 2:

• A telephone poll taken for CNN Thursday, Aug. 28 through Monday, Sept. 1 shows Sen. Mitch McConnell had 50 percent of the self-described likely voters and Alison Lundergan Grimes had 46 percent. The poll did not include Libertarian James Patterson. Its error margin, which applies to each number, is plus or minus 4 percentage points, but the poll continues a favorable trend for McConnell. He had his highest percentage yet, and a lead that matches the one in last week's Bluegrass Poll. Also like the Bluegrass Poll, this one showed him with big leads in Eastern and Western Kentucky, where President Obama's anti-coal policies are a burden for Grimes. The poll showed Obama's statewide job rating at 29 percent approval and 64 percent disapproval. One small bright spot for Grimes was that she had a marginal lead among women, 52 to 45 percent (plus or minus 5.5 points), after posting only a 1-point edge among them in some recent surveys. Only 19 percent of voters in the poll said they might change their mind. White women were among the most likely to do so, at 23 percent. The poll showed the race at McConnell ahead only 47-46 among registered voters (plus of minus 3.5 points), suggesting that Grimes, as expected will have more trouble getting her voters to the polls. The likely-voters figure is also suspect, because 75 percent of the registered voters surveyed said they were likely to vote and turnout is expected to be below 50 percent. For the detailed results, click here.
• McConnell told about 50 supporters at a fundraiser in Corbin Tuesday evening that the race is a "slugfest" and like a "knife fight," Trent Knuckles reports for the Corbin/Whitley News Journal. "I think we are going to be able to put this in the win column, but it's a very, very costly undertaking," McConnell said, adding that he "expects to raise about $30 million in campaign funds before voters go to the polls in November," Knuckles writes. "He estimates Grimes will have around $20 million. Pundits have said that it could be the first Senate race in the history of the nation to top $100 million in spending once cash from outside groups is factored in. McConnell said it dawned on him recently how big of a deal the race is in Kentucky when, during a recent campaign swing through the state, he had reporters from Australia and Japan following him around." McConnell said, "The eyes of the world are on this race. It's an international event. There is no presidential contest this year. This is the biggest race in the country. And the consequences are enormous." The event was held at the home of Terry Forcht, whose many business interests include the newspaper.
• Two commentators on Fox News raised questions about whether or not McConnell can be successful on Election Day, and what they might have to do with whether Republicans gain a Senate majority. On Fox News.com, radio host Richard Fowler called McConnell's re-election "highly unlikely" because of his high unfavorable ratings, and former White House assistant Brad Blakeman said McConnell could be the person to blame if Republicans don't gain the Senate majority. But Blakeman seemed to think McConnell would win.
• Grimes tried to keep alive the issue of the resignation of McConnell's campaign manager, issuing a press release posing 10 questions the senator should answer, starting with "When did you know that Benton was potentially tied to the federal criminal investigation of a bribery scandal?"
• McConnell was named federal legislator of the year by the Kentucky Narcotics Officers Association at their meeting in Louisville. For his official press release, which includes the text of his speech, click here.
• Grimes spoke to the Louisville Rotary Club but did not take questions, "in a departure from Rotary Club custom," Joe Arnold of WHAS-TV reports, quoting club Executive Director Debe Skidmore as saying the "Grimes team" had requested that.

Wall Street Journal video report sees stark contrast in race, explores reasons McConnell has won 5 terms

"It's a dark time to be a member of Congress," which has dismal approval ratings, "but do Americans ever really throw the bums out?" asks Sara Murray of The Wall Street Journal in a nearly five-minute video report on the race.

Murray notes that 21 of 23 incumbent senators who sought re-election in 2012 won, but says "Senator Mitch McConnell is in the political fight of his life" because of some unusual circumstances. "This time Mitch McConnell doesn't have the fundraising advantage he's used to," Murray says, noting Grimes' s strong fundraising and the many groups on both sides that are spending money.

"It's not just the Grimes fund-raising operation that's posing a threat. It's tough to draw a starker contrast between two candidates," she says, noting the huge differences in age and experience. "That contrast has the Grimes campaign betting it can win over women and young voters, and inspire the kind of people who might not normally turn up in the midterms."

So how has McConnell never lost a race in Kentucky? Murray asks his two most prominent foes: Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear, who lost to him in 1996, and Matt Bevin, the Louisville businessman who is "still smarting" from his defeat by McConnell in this year's Republican primary.

Asked why McConnell has won five times, Beshear replied simply, "Money."

Bevin said of the primary, "I think the number-one reason that he won was because of the seniority and the perception that somehow that is good for Kentucky, that somehow there's still bacon left to be brought home. . . . Everyone wants to throw the bums out, but just the other guy's bum."

Roundup: Grimes gets some heat at state fair; McConnell makes 5 stops in western coalfield

At the breakfast starting the Kentucky State Fair, politicians serve food and make news:

• Alison Lundergan Grimes is taking some heat on social media today as she attends the state fair. WHAS-TV reporter Brooke Hasch quoted her as saying she was there "with the people," while Sen. Mitch McConnell was in Washington. Actually, Congress is in recess and McConnell is in Bowling Green today, as Hasch later noted. 
• At the Commodity Breakfast kicking off the fair, Grimes was "the face everyone was looking for," but wouldn't do live interviews, reports WDRB-TV, which tweeted that it was going to get one and asked after it learned otherwise, "Grimes walks away from with interview Rachel Collier seconds before going live. Why?" She did record an interview with the station, discussing McConnell's votes against the most recent version of the Violence Against Women Act, saying "I guess he was before it before he was against it," and defending her support for raising the minimum wage.
• Following the theme of his latest commercial, McConnell made five stops in the West Kentucky Coalfield yesterday, three with Sen. Rand Paul, including "a Greenville trucking business that hauls coal to power plants," Joy Campbell reports for the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer. "It was a near perfect backdrop for McConnell to try to convince jobs-hungry Muhlenberg countians that he needs a sixth term to help defend the coal industry against the Obama administration. McConnell has only carried the strongly Democratic county once, "But this is a different kind of year, and the people here care about the Obama administration's 'war on coal,' he said." Campbell notes that Grimes "touts her endorsement by the United Mine Workers of America and says she supports not just the coal industry, but specifically coal miners, their jobs and their safety."

Politifact labels 'mostly false' McConnell's TV ad replying to Grimes' 'half true' spot on women's issues

Politifact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning service of the Tampa Bay Times, determined that Sen. Mitch McConnell's latest television commercial is "mostly false." The ad features his wife, former labor secretary Elaine Chao, responding to Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes' ad asking why he voted twice against the Violence Against Women Act and "equal pay for women."

In his response ad, a narrator says McConnell "voted for even stronger protections" than in the version he voted against in 2012 and 2013. Democrats included three new components -- "protection for LGBT people, immigrants and American Indian women who are abused on the tribal land by non-natives," Politifact notes.

Republicans rejected those, and "offered their own versions" of the legislation that included mandatory minimum sentences. "However, advocates of domestic violence awareness were specifically against the inclusion of these provisions," Politifact notes. They "worried that long mandatory minimums would 'keep victims who were assaulted by someone they know from reporting' and would create other issues in sentencing."

"McConnell’s campaign also noted that the Republican amendments required that 30 percent of the grant money given to states and localities to train and assist law enforcement in combating violence against women must be set aside for sexual assault," Politifact reports. "The Democratic bill put the figure at 20 percent, but this was more a shift in priorities than anything."

Politifact's ruling boiled down to this: "McConnell could argue that the mandatory minimum sentences Republicans required in their alternative made for a 'stronger' bill, but advocates of domestic abuse awareness opposed this measure as unnecessary. And the Republican measure was absent several protections for certain groups that were included in the bill Obama signed. McConnell is within his right to oppose those provisions, but it makes it hard for him to prove that he supported 'stronger' legislation."

As for the Grimes ad to which McConnell is responding, Politifact rated it half true, "given McConnell's history of voting for the act at times." His ad notes that he was an original sponsor of the act -- one of only three Republicans, Politifact noted. He didn't sponsor the first version that passed, but voted for it as part of another bill. He voted against the final version, which included provisions added by the House, including "a much more controversial assault-weapons ban," Politifact says. It also cites an analysis of the ad by FactCheck, which was reported in this blog last week.

Roundup: Post analyst says GOP likelier to gain Senate, but McConnell race Dems' top pickup chance

Rounding up the weekend coverage and commentary, and more recent items:

• Mitch McConnell's main positive argument for his re-election, that he would become Senate majority leader, gets a boost from Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post, who writes that a Republican takeover is now "a better than 50-50 proposition." But he also writes that the Kentucky race, not an open seat in Georgia, "seems the better opportunity" for Democrats to take a Republican seat, given "McConnell’s middling poll numbers and the able campaign being run by state Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. Polling gives McConnell a slight edge, but even his most ardent supporters acknowledge that his vote ceiling is somewhere between 51 and 52 percent." But he said a McConnell loss "looks possible — but not probable — at the moment."
• In his fortnightly column in The Courier-Journal, Al Cross (publisher of this blog) analyzes the week that began with the Fancy Farm Picnic, saying "Grimes needed a win at Fancy Farm, and she got it;" looks at her ad on women's issues and McConnell's response ad, featuring his wife, Elaine Chao; notes stories that could turn the race more personal; and ends with the candidates' battle for the East Kentucky Coal Field, where the percentage of uninsured people has dropped to record low levels but "Grimes still seems scared to come close to anything associated with Obama, much less Obamacare."
• The candidates' Eastern Kentucky crowds looked identical but had sharply divergent views, writes Ronnie Ellis of CNHI News Service: Grimes supporters "see an American society built by the middle class, a middle class they believe should always be expanding. But they see that dream faltering as the rules now seem stacked against them by rich and malevolent powers which get richer and richer at the expense of hard-working families whose incomes are shrinking. They see the coal economy by which many escaped poverty, and many more hope to, crumbling beneath them and their region." McConnell backers "are just as alarmed by the demise of coal in Eastern Kentucky. . . . To these folks, outside forces, alien, socialist forces, people who don’t like us, are malevolently working to destroy our way of life."
• Catching up with the weekly papers: The Record of Leitchfield reported last week that Grimes, on her way to Fancy Farm, stopped at Rough River Dam State Resort Park and got a little rough, telling supporters she was wearing "butt-kicking boots—the boots I’m gonna wear to kick Mitch McConnell’s butt out of his Senate seat."

Roundup: Women's issues rage; National Review hits Lundergan; Libertarian says he'll file; UMW plans ads

After a one-day breather, the race roars again, mostly about women's issues:

• Sen. Mitch McConnell started a 30-second television commercial in which his wife, Elaine Chao, does all the talking: "Have you ever noticed how some liberals feel entitled to speak on behalf of all women? As if every woman agrees with Barack Obama? Alison Lundergan Grimes' gender-based attacks are desperate and false." (Grimes is running an ad in which a woman asks McConnell, "Why did you vote two times against the Violence Against Women Act?") In McConnell's ad, Chao is followed by a female narrator saying he co-sponsored the original law and has "always supported its purpose. Mitch voted for even stronger protections than Obama's agenda will allow." Chao returns to conclude the ad, saying "Alison, supporting the Obama agenda isn't pro-woman; it's anti-Kentucky."
  
• Grimes's campaign responded to the new ad: "Simply saying ‘I’m married to a woman’ doesn’t speak loud enough. Your actions and record over 30 years in Washington indicate where and how you will stand up for women." The campaign cited McConnell's two votes against the latest version of the act, which expanded it to include same-sex couples and immigrants and allowed tribal courts to try non-Native Americans accused of domestic violence on reservations. It also noted other McConnell votes mentioned in the Grimes ad: against a 2012 bill to strengthen the Paycheck Fairness Act and against the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Act, which extended the time for women to file pay-discrimination suits to 180 days after their last paycheck. McConnell "supported a failed amendment that would have started the 180-day statute of limitation clock from 'the date when the person aggrieved has, or should be expected to have, enough information to support a reasonable suspicion of such discrimination'," FactCheck.org noted in a detailed analysis of the Grimes ad last week.
• Sam Youngman of the Lexington Herald-Leader began his story on the ad, "Just days after Democrats scrambled to disavow a political consultant’s comments about the ethnicity of former U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, she is starring in a new ad on behalf of her husband." He ended it this way: "Chao, who came to the U.S. in the hull of a freighter ship at age 8, is making her television debut in the general election after a Kentucky Democratic operative came under fire for posting on Twitter about Chao’s Asian heritage. Kathy Groob, the founder of a pro-Grimes Democratic super PAC who attended a Grimes event in Northern Kentucky with U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow in February, said Saturday on Twitter that by bringing Chao into the race, her ethnicity is 'fair game' to criticize. The Kentucky Democratic Party denounced the comments, and Groob deleted them."
• Also on women's issues, Eliana Johnson of the conservative magazine National Review suggests that Grimes's father, Jerry Lundergan, is a misogynist or sexist, noting that he "owns with his brothers the restaurant Hugh Jass Burgers, where a few menu items make reference to the women in his family: 'Charlotte’s Rack' is a rack of ribs named after Lundergan’s wife, Charlotte, and 'Abby’s Hugh Jass' is a hamburger named after his daughter." (He has five.) "'The Tiny Tush' [is] a smaller burger described as '6 ounces of juicy deliciousness.' I have a feeling Grimes might find that degrading and offensive."
• "Harrodsburg police officer David Patterson said he will file Monday to join Kentucky’s U.S. Senate race as a Libertarian," reports Jack Brammer of the Herald-Leader. Patterson has to present 5,000 signatures of registered Kentucky voters by Aug. 12 to get on the Nov. 4 ballot. "Ken Moellman, state chairman of the Libertarian Party, said Tuesday that a signature drive for Patterson has collected more than 9,000 signatures," Brammer reports. "Patterson said in a news release that he will be in the race to win and not to take votes from any particular candidate."
• "The United Mine Workers of America endorsed Grimes over the weekend and is planning an undisclosed amount of advertising this fall in Eastern Kentucky, where animosity runs high toward President Barack Obama and his policies on coal," reports Mike Wynn of The Courier-Journal. Steve Earle, an international vice president of the union and its Kentucky political director, told Wynn, "This is going to be a game changer for this race, particularly in Eastern Kentucky. Our people bloc vote, and we figure we are worth about 20,000 votes." The union represents no Eastern Kentucky miners but has thousands of retirees in the region.
• Paul Kane of The Washington Post explores McConnell's relationship with his more popular junior colleague: "Four years ago, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell seemed ripe to loathe one another as colleagues in the Senate. Now, against all odds, it’s difficult to find any state with senators whose local and national ambitions are so interlocked, so compatible, and whose senior aides work so hand-in-hand in pursuit of both men’s agenda." (Read more)

Both candidates look back 30 years at political-party breakfasts preceding Fancy Farm Picnic

The two political parties warmed up for the Fancy Farm Picnic this morning with rousing speeches from the U.S. Senate nominees to big crowds at breakfasts in Mayfield.

By Megan Ingros

At the Graves County Republican Breakfast, Sen. Mitch McConnell discussed the political changes in Kentucky during his nearly 30 years in office. Despite his Louisville roots, he said, "Today the smaller the town, the better I do."

McConnell at breakfast (Paducah Sun photo)

McConnell touched on three main issues: health reform, jobs and foreign policy, in each case criticizing President Obama, his main focus of attack in the race.

"The reason we haven't had the kind of bounce back we normally have after a recession is because of the Obama administration itself. . . . It's hard to think of a single thing they haven't messed up," he said. "They think if you're making a profit then you're up to no good. . . . "There's no more conspicuous example of this than the war on coal."

On foreign policy, McConnell implicitly criticized the secretary of state. "The last thing we need is John Kerry trying to force the Israels to make a bad deal. . . . We need to stand by our Israeli friends and this administration needs to get with the program."

McConnell closed with his main argument, that people frustrated with Obama can do only one thing in this year's election, give Republicans control of the Senate and make him majority leader. "My opponent will tell you she's a new face ... She's a new face for Brack Obama. She's a new face for Harry Reid. she's a  new face for no change at all."

By Paige Hobbs

Alison Lundergan Grimes filled the packed room at the Graves County Democratic breakfast with criticism of McConnell and emphasis on jobs.

"It is my number-one priority is to put hardworking Kentuckians back to work," she said. "Hardworking Kentuckians across this commonwealth, they don't just deserve a minimum wage, they need a living wage, and as your senator that's what I'll fight for."

Grimes said that "after three decades, 30 years in Washington, it's Mitch McConnell that has gone Washington, that is out of touch, he has given up on us; it seems he just doesn't care. D.C, in fact, D.C. has come to stand for 'doesn't care' when it comes to giving hardworking Kentuckians a fighting chance to actually survive and increase the minimum wage, Mitch McConnell doesn't care. I do."

Grimes urged the crowd "to bring this race across the finish line" and she ended with a line that she flubbed at the Marshall County Democratic Party bean supper Friday night: "They may have a concession stands at Fancy Farm today but come November 4, Mitch McConnell, he'll be giving a concession speech."

Grimes is 'Playing politics with Violence Against Women' in latest TV ad, FactCheck.org says

A woman in Alison Lundergan Grimes's latest television commercial asks Sen. Mitch McConnell, "Why did you vote two times against the Violence Against Women Act?" The question refers to votes in 2012 and 2013, when McConnell said he "opposed Democratic expansions of the bill that included provisions for same-sex couples and immigrants, and one that would have allowed Native American tribal courts to try non-Native Americans accused of domestic violence on reservations. In both cases, McConnell supported Republican alternatives to those bills that he claimed would have strengthened the Violence Against Women Act," Robert Farley writes for FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan service of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

"McConnell has never opposed the central purpose" of the law, Farley reports. "In fact, he was a cosponsor of the original bill in 1991, and he has twice supported its reauthorization. McConnell did vote against a massive crime bill that included the VAWA because it also contained a ban on assault weapons."

The second half of the question in the ad says McConnell voted "against enforcing equal pay for women" in 2012 and 2009. The phrase is debatable, Farley writes: The 2012 bill would have "prohibited companies from barring employees from talking with co-workers about their pay; required businesses to give a reason for disparities in pay; and allowed women to sue employers for punitive damages if they were paid unfairly." McConnell and other Republicans said the law already bans unequal, gender-based pay, and the bill would have just caused more lawsuits. The 2009 bill, which passed, extended the time for women to file pay-discrimination suits to 180 days after their last paycheck. McConnell "supported a failed amendment that would have started the 180-day statute of limitation clock from 'the date when the person aggrieved has, or should be expected to have, enough information to support a reasonable suspicion of such discrimination'," Farley notes.

Roundup: Grimes ad stays on theme and in east but raises women's issues; she gets flak for Israel answer

Grimes makes news with new TV commercial and more difficulty with questions . . .

• Alison Lundergan Grimes released a new television commercial that continues her theme of having Eastern Kentucky residents pose questions to Sen. Mitch McConnell. This time, the votes she seeks are those of women, among whom she slipped in the latest Bluegrass Poll. Ilene Woods of Lynch asks, "Why did you vote two times against the Violence Against Women Act, and against enforcing equal pay for women?" McConnell voted against the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 and 2012. A 45-second web ad expands on the attack and says McConnell voted against the Violence Against Women Act in 1994.

• "Republicans took to the Internet Wednesday morning to assail ... Grimes after she said Tuesday that Israel's missile defense system had helped prevent terrorist attacks from Hamas' tunnel network," Sam Youngman reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. The day before, Youngman quoted Grimes as saying, "The Iron Dome has been a big reason why Israel has been able to withstand the terrorists that have tried to tunnel their way in."
• McConnell's campaign released a video that "invites supporters to join Sen. McConnell at this year’s Fancy Farm Picnic on Saturday." The video highlights parts of McConnell's speech and excitement from last year's picnic.
• "More than half of Kentucky voters say creating jobs and improving the economy is the top issue facing the United States, and two-thirds of voters say Kentucky's U.S. Senate candidates have an obligation to debate each other," Youngman reports in then final installment of results from the Bluegrass Poll.
• WFPL reporter Phillip M. Bailey offers five takeaways from the poll, including "Grimes leads McConnell among women by just one point."
• Reid Wilson of The Washington Post Reid Wilson reports, "The pro-Mitch McConnell Kentucky Opportunity Coalition is spending $305,000 on ads this week. Senate Majority PAC is spending $83,000 for Grimes."

Grimes faces balancing act on women's issues; Libertarian says he has signatures to get on ballot

Rounding up much of the news and commentary in the race since our last post:

• Alison Lundergan Grimes faces "a balancing act" as she as she works to get female voters to cast ballots for her "while avoiding the pitfalls Democrats often face in Kentucky on social and cultural issues such as abortion," Sam Youngman writes for the Lexington Herald-Leader.
  
  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/07/17/3341075/in-anti-abortion-kentucky-grimes.html#storylink=cpy

• Independent Senate candidate Ed Marksberry of Owensboro announced a few days ago that he was abandoning his effort to obtain 5,000 signatures by the Aug. 12 deadline to get on the Nov. 4 ballot, but the Libertarian Party of Kentucky "announced Thursday that its candidate, 42-year-old David Patterson of Mercer County, appears poised" to get enough signatures, Phillip Bailey of WFPL reports. "We're currently sitting right at about 5,000 as of today actually," Patterson, told Bailey. "The 8,000 is our comfort zone." Patterson, right, is a Harrodsburg police officer who makes a habit of carrying a pistol in a holster while off duty.
• The candidates should accept Centre College President John Roush's proposal for a Sept. 3 debate at the Danville school, Joe Gerth writes in his weekly column for The Courier-Journal, and the Louisville newspaper says likewise in an editorial. A Herald-Leader editorial called on Grimes and Sen. Mitch McConnell to accept the Centre debate and one proposed by the League of Women Voters of Kentucky.
• Pikeville lawyer Larry Webster, who typically sprays several rhetorical shotgun blasts in his Herald-Leader column, included the Senate race Sunday: "Any place where it is worth spending $100 million to elect a senator ought to be worth staying in. Maybe if we spend $200 million to elect a senator, we might get one with enough foresight to anticipate the obsolescence of coal and do something about the future other than blaming the colored guy."
• Former Sen. Wendell Ford announced that he is starting chemotherapy for cancer in one of his lungs and another unspecified location, and thus won't be campaigning for Grimes, at least any time soon. Ford's announcement prompted an appreciation from C-J Washington Correspondent Jim Carroll in his weekly column.
  
  
  Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/07/20/3343978/e-ky-kids-trek-south-haunted-by.html#storylink=cpy

July 15 roundup: Local coverage, big money, abortion-group ads and more gender politics

Here's an illustration of why local news media should cover and record (preferably on video) the Senate candidates when they come to town:

• Sen. Mitch McConnell "seemed to have little sympathy for students who have accumulated massive amounts of student debt during a town hall with constituents last week," Amanda Terkel writes for the Huffington Post. Asked in Oldham County "what changes should be made so that students aren't leaving school with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt," McConnell said there should be any government intervention and that students should look into schools that are cheaper. "Not everybody needs to go to Yale. I don't know about you guys, but I went to a regular ol' Kentucky college," McConnell said. He is a graduate of the University of Louisville and the law school at the University of Kentucky. Terkel's report was based on a story by The Oldham Era's Taylor Riley, whose report included a 36-minute video of McConnell's remarks.
• Grimes said she raised more than $4 million in the second quarter of the year, setting a Kentucky record and besting McConnell's $3.1 million. She having reported $6.2 million in her campaign treasury while McConnell reported $9.8 million. Complete reports aren't readily available today because senators have blocked making their reports digital. 
• Over the weekend, NPR reporter Tamara Keith provided a synopsis of what you could buy in Kentucky for $100 million, the predicted total expenses in the Senate race. "You could buy a bottle of the state's own Maker's Mark whiskey for nearly every man, woman and child in the state," Keith said. The race could end up being the most expensive in history. McConnell's unpopularity in Kentucky created an opening for Grimes, and "not only are the candidates and political parties spending big; so are outside groups," reports Keith.
• "A national abortion rights group is launching an attack ad against McConnell for 'never doing the right thing for Kentucky women'," Joe Arnold of Louisville's WHAS-TV reports. A NARAL Pro-Choice America spokeswoman told Arnold the group made "a mid-range five-figure ad buy for cable and another mid-range five figure ad buy online in the Lexington and Louisville markets," both of which are modest. Alison Lundergan Grimes said "the Supreme Court 'got it wrong' in the Hobby Lobby case," reports Arnold. McConnell's campaign spokeswoman said, "If you need to know who Alison Lundergan Grimes intends to represent if elected, consider that radical abortion groups are now descending upon Kentucky to run ads on her behalf. The fact that Alison Lundergan Grimes cannot even support Sen. McConnell's common-sense efforts to curb late-term abortions shows Kentuckians that her agenda aligns with President Obama and extreme pro-abortion groups in Washington."
• McConnell's campaign released a statement regarding McConnell's remarks on the Senate floor today on the "struggles of middle-class women under Obamacare," but the only distinction he made about women was to say that "Research shows that women make about 80 percent of the health-care decisions for their families in this country."
• McConnell played a little gender politics in criticizing President Obama's decision to replace Cheryl LaFleur as chairwoman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission with “a male nominee with less experience,” reports Ramsey Cox of The Hill. "McConnell pointed out that Bay has never served as a state utility regulator or as a FERC commissioner. Republicans and some pro-fossil fuel Democrats opposed Bay’s nomination in committee."
• "In a web video released Monday, McConnell's campaign counters Grimes's claims about McConnell's stance on Medicare policy with excerpts of last week's news coverage which uniformly reported that Grimes's commercial is misleading," Joe Arnold of WHAS 11 reports. The first 20 seconds of the video begins with Grimes's ad, "then proceeds with clips from local television stories and national fact-checking wings of newspapers which reached similar conclusions about the commercial," Arnold says, but the video does not include "critiques of factual problems with McConnell's commercial produced in response to the Grimes ad.".
• Grimes' campaign released a statement regarding McConnell's history in Washington and his 2011 vote to advance the budget proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. McConnell "voted against extending unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed," the statement noted.
• Harry Enten of Five Thirty Eight writes that polls have over-estimated Democratic Senate candidates' strength in Kentucky and Georgia, the two states where national Democrats are trying to unseat incumbents. In Kentucky, polling data shows Grimes trailing McConnell by only 1.5 percentage points, but the political-statistics website gives her less than a 20 percent chance of winning.

July 2 roundup: Another military-women mailer, this one more specific

Women's issues are in play today:

• Adam Beam of The Associated Press looks at Sen. Mitch McConnell's vocal support of the Supreme Court ruling that lets closely held companies opt out of the federal health-reform law's requirement to include contraceptive coverage in mandatory insurance for their employees: "Political observers said McConnell has been talking more about social issues such as abortion during this campaign than he has for most of his 30-year Senate career. That could be a byproduct of this year's Republican primary, where McConnell had to defeat Tea Party challenger Matt Bevin." (Read more)

• The Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, a "super PAC" supporting McConnell, has sent its fourth direct-mail advertisement touting McConnell's support of women in the military. It mentions the same issues as before, one with more specifics: bills to take sexual-assault cases out of the chain of command and to allow women to fly combat missions. Earlier ads said the latter bill would give them "more hands-on opportunities." For a copy of the latest ad, click here.

Roundup for Tuesday, May 27: Gender politics

After a long weekend, these stories bubble up:

Photo by Win McNamee, Getty Images

• Slate, playing off a Grimes profile last week in The Washington Post, says in a headline that the race "tests how far Democrats can take the 'war on women' rhetoric." Amanda Marcotte writes for the "XX Factor" column research "shows that when attention is drawn to a female candidate's gender, especially her clothing choices, it tends to hurt her in the polls," except "when she's accusing her opposition of sexism," as Alison Grimes is. The caption for the Getty Images photo with the story says Grimes is wearing "a very effective dress."
• In a look at top reporters covering Senate races around the nation, Hadas Gold of Politico finds some feeling in Kentucky that the state's two major newspapers lean opposite ways in news coverage: With Sam Youngman coming to the Lexington Herald-Leader "from Washington, some politicos said his stories tend to lean toward McConnell’s point of view, while others said it appears as though [Joe] Gerth and The Courier-Journal are looking to take down the Senate minority leader. . . . The reporter nearly every Kentucky politico mentioned at first, though, is [cable] station cn|2’s Ryan Alessi, who is leaving this summer to pursue a graduate degree, though he said he may continue freelancing during the election." We hope so!
• Former Clinton administration trade official Ira Shapiro writes in an opinion piece on CNN.com, says McConnell has been the Senate's most destructive leader by doing "everything in his power to keep the Republicans in lockstep opposition" to President Obama. McConnell has said that if he becomes majority leader, he would try to make the Senate operate more like it did when Democrat Mike Mansfield held the job in the 1960s and '70s.