Public Policy Polling has released new polls on the senate races in three states -- Kansas, North Carolina, and Kentucky. They surveyed 903 likely voters in Kansas between August 14th and 17th, with a margin of error of 3.3 points -- 856 likely voters in North Carolina between August 14th and 17th, with a 3.4 point margin of error -- and 991 likely voters in Kentucky between August 7th and 10th, with a margin of error of 3.1 points.
A year ago, the Republicans were thinking they could flip the Senate, and a big part of that was their thinking they could easily hold on to Kansas and Kentucky and then take North Carolina from the Democrats. But it isn't working out that way. The senate races in all three of these races have turned out to be real dogfights.
In Kansas, the unpopularity of the incumbent Republican senator (Pat Roberts) and a popular Independent candidate (Greg Orman) has caused that race to be a three-way split between the candidates (with the third candidate being Democrat Chad Taylor). I still expect the Republican incumbent to eke out a win in Kansas, but the truth is that anything could happen there -- including the election of another Independent to the Senate (joining Independent Senators King of Maine and Sanders of Vermont).
North Carolina has proved to be tougher for the Republicans to flip than they had expected. Incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan still hangs on to a four point lead, and I think she'll probably survive in November. The Republicans may have killed this excellent chance by nominating an extremist teabagger candidate (Thom Tillis).
But Kentucky remains the most interesting of these three states. The lead has flipped back and forth between the incumbent Republican Mitch McConnell and his Democratic opponent Alison Grimes. Right now McConnell has a four point lead according to the PPP survey, but that is far from a safe lead. There are still 9% of the voters that are undecided, and those undecideds give McConnell a 10% favorable to a 66% disapproval rating. This one is just too close to call.
The Republicans had thought these three states were theirs -- but it now looks like they could easily lose one, and maybe two, of them.
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