The Least Respected Senator

The folks over at Public Policy Polling, after doing some polling since the election, have determined that the least respected senator on Capitol Hill (at least among the voters in his home state) is Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky). PPP polled 1,266 Kentucky voters between December 7th and 9th, and they found McConnell had the worst approval to disapproval rating of any U.S. Senator. Here are his numbers:

DO YOU APPROVE OR DISAPPROVE OF MCCONNELL'S JOB PERFORMANCE?

All Voters
approve...............37%
disapprove...............55%
Not sure...............8%

Independents
approve...............33%
disapprove...............58%
Not sure...............10%

Democrats
approve...............23%
disapprove...............73%
Not sure...............4%

Republicans
approve...............59%
disapprove...............28%
Not sure...............13%

It's no surprise that Kentucky Democrats don't like McConnell. And it's no surprise that among Republicans he has a better approval number than disapproval (although we would expect a veteran senator who is his party's Minority Leader to have a higher approval rating than 59%). The real hurt comes from the Independents, who give him a 25 point higher disapproval rate than approval rate (a very big gap).

With numbers that bad, it's no wonder that some Democrats are talking about having a chance to oust McConnell when he runs for re-election in 2014. And the leading contender at this time is actress Ashley Judd, who has deep Kentucky roots, and graduated from the University of Kentucky. Although she hasn't made up her mind about running, she is considering it and currently leads all other Democratic possibles by double digits. Here are her favorable/unfavorable numbers:

All Voters
favorable...............42%
unfavorable...............36%
Not sure...............22%

Independents
favorable...............38%
unfavorable...............40%
Not sure...............22%

Democrats
favorable...............56%
unfavorable...............24%
Not sure...............20%

Republicans
favorable...............23%
unfavorable...............51%
Not sure...............26%

Those aren't great numbers either, but they are better than McConnell's, and there are a significant number of "not sures" that could be worked on. So, does that mean she could beat McConnell? Anything is possible, but we must remember that Kentucky is a very red state -- and there are a lot of people that would vote Republican regardless of who the Democrats ran in the race (and regardless of what they personally think of McConnell). Here's what would happen if the election was held today:

All Voters
McConnell...............47%
Judd...............43%
Not sure...............10%

That's actually closer than I thought it would be right now -- only a 4 point difference, and with enough "not sures" to swing the election either way. There's still a couple of years to go, and anything could happen -- but I still believe this would be a very hard seat for Democrats to win (no matter who they nominated). But it will be interesting to watch this over the next couple of years.