Mitch McConnell's seen a significant decline in his standing with Republican voters following his ill fated endorsement of Trey Grayson for the party's Senate nomination, and as a result his home state approval numbers are now by far the worst they've ever been in PPP's Kentucky polling.
PPP's last three polls found McConnell's approval ranging from 44% to 48% to 43%. Now only 34% of voters in the state like the job McConnell's doing with 48% disapproving. And beyond that a near majority of his constituents- 49%- would like to see him lose his role as Republican leader in the Senate to only 38% who think he should continue on in it.
McConnell's seen no change in his standing with Democratic voters since PPP's early May poll of the state. He was at 25/62 then and he's at 24/63 now. With Republicans though he's dropped from a +49 approval spread at 68/19 to now just a +26 at 51/25. He's had a dramatic decline with independents as well from -9 at 36/45 to -33 at 22/55. Kentucky has a relatively small number of independent voters though so those numbers have comparatively little to do with McConnell's overall drop.
Digging deeper into McConnell's numbers his decline in popularity has come completely with conservative voters. His 23% approval rating with moderates is unchanged from two months ago and his 15% standing with liberals is actually slightly improved from 12% in the May poll. But with conservatives, who comprise the largest voting bloc in Kentucky, he's fallen from 67% all the way down to 47%. It's probably a good thing for McConnell that he's not up for reelection again until 2014 because the downward descent in his numbers with the party base suggest he could be the next big target of the Tea Party crowd.
McConnell's learning, like Harry Reid, that it's hard to be a big shot in Washington and maintain your support on the home front.
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6 comments:
Yea, this is extremely relevant to the mid-term elections. Good work as usual. Get the check yet from Kos?
Uh, your poll shows that 47% of conservatives approve of Mr. McConnell -- not 27%. You might want to re-write your little write-up.
Thanks for catching that. Had the degree of the decline right but put in the wrong actual numbers.
When are you going to give the results of a hypothetical race between Gov. Beshear and Ag Commissioner Richie Farmer which were some of the questions that were part of your poll?
I can't stand McConnell. It's not just his politics -- they're bad enough, for sure; the guy just gives me the creeps every time I hear him. I heard about this tech in the second week of the leak and the spokeswoman was irate that no one in the admin would even return her calls or emails. He knows what he is doing. Think of all the small businesses along the Gulf that will go under, all the new unemployed that will be reliant on the gubmint teat for their sustenance. In the mean time, he hasn’t even sent a post card to Nashville and a whole slew of folks are about to get their pink slips.
mcconnell was never popular...poor mitch is a fruit in my opinon. surely we have better qualified in the senate.
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