Second Straight Poll Pegs KY-Sen as a Tie

A couple days ago I noted Ipsos polling on the Kentucky Senate race showing Democrat Jack Conway and Republican Rand Paul in a 40 percent-40 percent tie among registered voters, with the unlikely likely voter screen giving Paul a 5 percentage point lead. Now a second straight survey has found the race to be tied:

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate appears to have picked up some undecided voters over the last two weeks and is in a dead heat with Republican candidate Rand Paul, the latest cn|2 Poll shows.

When asked which candidate they would support if the election were today, 41.7% of likely Kentucky voters said Conway and 41.2% picked Paul. The survey of 801 voters was conducted Aug. 16 through 18.

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The results reflect a 10-point jump for Conway from the last statewide cn|2 Poll taken Aug. 2-4. Support for Paul has held steady at around 41 percent for each of the three statewide cn|2 Polls. View the full results and crosstabs of the Aug 16-18 poll here.

The internal campaign numbers on this race are apparently sufficiently rosy for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to commit a seven-figure sum to the race, so it does appear that Paul's repeated post-primary stumbles -- nearly all of which related to his own mouth -- have made this election competitive.

One point to mull, however: just because the race is tied today does not mean it will be tied come November. I clearly recall watching the 2004 Oklahoma Senate race, which also featured a, shall we say, outspoken ultra-conservative Republican facing a significantly less controversial Democrat. In that race, the Democrat, Brad Carson, also edged up in the polls, eventually leading by a small margin while polling in the low 40s -- but in the end Carson was unable to get out of the low 40s, leaving the Republican, Tom Coburn, to a double digit victory. Which is all to say just because a race is competitive today does not mean it will be close on election day.