As Independent Support Grows For Alison Grimes Democrats Spend $650,000 On New TV Ads

Alison Lundergan Grimes

A week ago the media was claiming that Democrats had abandoned Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Democratic Senatorial candidate running against 30 year incumbent and obstructor-at-large Republican Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell.

Manu Raju at Politico reported Wednesday afternoon that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is tossing $650,000 in airtime for Grimes, based on recent polls that suggest the race is tight.

The party committee is reserving $650,000 in air time to boost Alison Lundergan Grimes after reviewing recent internal and public polling, a DSCC official told POLITICO. The polling, the source says, suggested that independent voters are moving in the Democrat’s direction.

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The decision comes after the big-spending party committee said last week it had no plans to spend on the air in Kentucky until Election Day, a sign many interpreted as meaning that Washington Democrats had given up on the race. But with the new ad buy and ongoing DSCC investment in the Grimes voter turnout effort, Democrats are signaling they believe they can still pull off an upset in one of their few pickup chances.

It was true that Democrats hadn’t purchased more TV ads, but they weren’t abandoning Grimes. Not only has she managed to raise record sums on her own, but the DSCC invested $300,000 into her ground game on that same day and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton campaigned for her on the heels of these accusations on October 15. Former President Bill Clinton campaigned for Grimes last night to a crowd of 3,000, while Mitch McConnell’s crowd comprised of many staffers.

On October 6th the first Kentucky Bluegrass poll showing Grimes leading McConnell by 2 points came out, which spells a tight, toss up race, not a McConnell win. According to Politico, team McConnell claims that these polls are undersampling men.

The media keeps pointing to polls as the reason why Democrats would abandon Grimes, but I’m pretty sure the DSCC isn’t so stupid as to stake the future of the Senate on a Rasmussen poll that had McConnell up by eight points, but as Jason Easley pointed out, looked like an outlier with even bigger bias for Republicans than they had in 2012. I’m willing to bet that they, who are following the Obama campaign’s ground game, are also following his approach to national polls and understand the folly of the poll better than the media.

Since then, a Survey USA poll shows Grimes positioned to win as she’s basically even with McConnell with him leading by 1%, which is in the margin of error, but that doesn’t take into account the historic ground game Kentucky Democrats say they are waging (as indeed Democrats are around the country).

It makes sense that the DSCC, which has raised record amounts of cash, held money back for the final push, in order to make very careful choices about placement based on the changing landscapes of the races. They never abandoned Grimes, and now they’re investing the last ad buys of the campaign in her because it — gasp — it looks possible.


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