Midterm Roundup: Democrats Pull Out Of Kentucky

Here are some interesting stories on the midterm campaigns that you may have missed on Tuesday, October 14:

• In a major blow to Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes’ Senate campaign, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has stopped running TV ads in Kentucky. The move strongly suggests that the committee has given up hope that Grimes can unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Grimes — whose campaign will continue to air ads, and receive on-air support from outside groups — trails McConnell by 3 percent in the Real Clear Politicspoll average.

• According to a new CNN/ORC poll, Republican incumbent Rick Scott and Democrat Charlie Crist are tied at 44 percent in Florida’s contentious gubernatorial race. That marks the fourth consecutive poll to show the race within 2 percentage points; Crist leads by less than 1 percent in the poll average.

• Another poll of Alaska’s Senate race has found incumbent Democrat Mark Begich trailing Republican challenger Mark Sullivan. The survey, from Rasmussen Reports, has Sullivan up 3 percent, and he leads by 4.4 percent in the poll average. But that might underestimate Begich’s chances, due to his robust get-out-the-vote operation and the notorious unreliability of Alaska polling.

• Democrat Mike Michaud has opened a 6-point lead in Maine’s three-way gubernatorial race, according to a new Bangor Daily News/Ipsos poll. Michaud has the support of 42 percent of likely voters, followed by incumbent Republican Paul LePage at 36 percent, and Independent Eliot Cutler at 16 percent. The poll pushes Michaud into a narrow lead in the poll average. Were LePage to win, he would likely become the first governor in U.S. history to win back-to-back elections with less than 40 percent of the vote.

• And in North Carolina’s Senate race, Republican candidate Thom Tillis is facing some tough questions over his past declaration that the government had provided “de facto reparations” for slavery by having “redistributed trillions of dollars of wealth over the years.” Incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan holds a small but consistent lead in the poll average.

Photo: UFCW International Union via Flickr

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