Two New Polls Peg KY-Sen as a Tossup

SurveyUSA doesn't think the Kentucky Senate election is a real race. Two other new polls beg to differ. Here's CNN:

A new poll indicates that the battle for Kentucky's open Senate seat is dead even.

According to a new CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corporation survey of registered voters in Kentucky, 46 percent support Republican nominee Rand Paul, with an equal amount saying they back Democratic nominee Jack Conway. Five percent of those questioned say they'd vote for neither candidate if the general election were held today, and four percent have no opinion.

These numbers largely comport with Democratic polling from the race:

Ophthalmologist Rand Paul (R) and state Attorney General Jack Conway (D) are in a statistical tie in the Kentucky Senate race, according to a new survey conducted by a Democratic pollster.

Paul takes 48 percent to 45 percent for Conway in the poll, which was conducted for the Kentucky Leadership Council by John Anzalone.

The poll shows voters are concerned about Paul's public statements, including one in which he appeared to dismiss the state's problems with drugs. Neaely six in ten voters (59 percent) agreed that Paul "says things that bother and concern me."

It's quite possible that the turnout assumptions of those pollsters most bearish on the Democrats are correct -- that Republicans are poised to turn out at record numbers (even greater than in 1994!) while Democrats are going to stay home. Indeed, the correlation between people who are willing to sit through several minutes of poll questions, whether from a live interviewer or a recorded voice, is perfect (or close to it). Then again, perhaps these pollsters' assumptions are a bit off. It's not like we haven't seen a number of races this cycle where pollsters' projections haven't been on the mark in one direction or the other (think NY-23 and MA-Sen, but also the Virginia Democratic primary and even the New Jersey Governor's race, to an extent). One thing we do know is they all can't be right -- those pollsters who think the Democrats are dead in the water, and those who don't -- and it's not all that long from the time at which we figure out who was on the mark and who wasn't.