http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/elections/indiana/2014/09/14/grimes-might-need-campaign-reset-observers-say/15539285/With at least seven public polls showing her trailing Mitch McConnell by anywhere between 4 and 8 percentage points, Alison Lundergan Grimes sent her pollster out last week to tamp down speculation that her campaign was withering at the hands of an opponent that has killed off every challenger who ever faced him.
"The big point here is that this is essentially a tied race," Mark Mellman, Grimes' pollster, said in a conference call. "Allison has the narrowest of advantages at this moment."
But some who watch campaigns closely say the bulk of polling suggests it may be time for a major reset in the Grimes camp if she wants to restore the momentum she appeared to have last winter. Back then, poll's showed her with leads — before McConnell and his surrogates spent millions of dollars trying to tie her to Barack Obama in a state where the president is terribly unpopular.
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Stuart Rothenberg, publisher of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report, said he's not ready to write off Grimes but her fortunes appear to be sagging.
The race is not over, he said in an email. But "is Grimes positioned as well now as she was right after the primary? I don't think so."
Grimes entered the race more than a year ago. Democrats had high hopes about her because she was a young attractive candidate who came from a political family that gave her access to raise vast amounts of money.
Plus, she had already stood for statewide office and won easily and didn't have a political record of damaging votes and positions that McConnell could attack. Her biggest drawback was a problem all Democrats would have — the same party affiliation as Obama.
But the belief among Democrats was that McConnell's negatives were almost as high as Obama's and that would provide her a path to victory.
Blog: Grimes pushes back against sagging polls
In January and February, the Bluegrass Poll showed Grimes leading McConnell by 4 percentage points. Since then, the poll has seen her position erode by about 1 percentage point a month. In polling this month, McConnell had turned that around and held an advantage of 4 points.
Jonathan Hurst, Grimes' campaign manager, acknowledged that the campaign released its poll numbers in an effort to refute other polling that shows the race trending McConnell's direction. But he said the polls were not affecting Grimes' fundraising, which is often the area that takes the biggest hit when people start believing a race is going badly for a candidate.
He said he's not worried about the public polling or the campaign because he trusts Mellman's numbers implicitly and he expects numbers to fluctuate before November. "Do we think that polls are going to flip-flop back and forth? Yes," he said.
"We see the race as neck and neck, and Alison Grimes is in a great position to win this," he said.
Danny Briscoe, a Democratic political consultant not working for the Grimes campaign, said that while Grimes has worked hard to keep McConnell's negatives high, she hasn't done enough to give voters a reason to voter for her.
Her television commercials have largely been attacks on McConnell, maybe with a brief mention of what her positions are and how she would approach the job of senator. Positive ads haven't told much about her positions on issues that she has talked about on the stump, like raising the minimum wage.
"Momentum in a campaign, it's like turning a big ship around at sea," he said. "She can do it, but it's difficult and it's time consuming.
"The people in Kentucky made up their mind about Mitch McConnell a long time ago. ... They would be happy to replace him but ... she hasn't given them any reasons to be for her."
He suggests that Grimes go on a major offensive in which she tries to communicate to voters her positions on a number of populist issues, ranging from the minimum wage to making sure that women are paid wages equal to men.
Briscoe said she should also consider doing what the Democratic incumbent in Arkansas and a candidate in West Virginia have done; gone on television to endorse the more popular parts of the Affordable Care Act, including a provision that requires health insurers to cover pre-existing conditions.
Unlike the national Obamacare system, Kentucky's rollout of Kynect, the state's insurance exchange created under the federal law, rolled out without a hitch and is serving more than 400,000 people.
"Something's got to be done a lot different because what's happening isn't working," he said.
Few of Grimes' television commercials have explained where she stands on issues. Instead, they have largely attacked McConnell for things like his failure to attend Senate Agriculture Committee meetings, his votes against extending unemployment and his positions on so-called women's issues.
Jennifer Duffy, senior editor for the non-partisan Cook Political Report, agreed that Grimes hasn't been able to define herself while McConnell has created an image of her that has driven up her unfavorable ratings. Nor has she been able to earn voters' trust, Duffy said.
"This was never going to be a campaign about who voters like the most, it was going to be a campaign about who voters trust the most," she said. McConnell and super PACs have done a better job at creating the narrative about Grimes than her own campaign, she said.
"The problem is that I don't know if voters are believing that she's not going to be, you know, a Democrat voting with Barack Obama and (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid," Duffy said.Furthermore, Grimes is just 35 and doesn't have a long history of public service. "This is not specific to her but when you're 34 or 35, it's hard to define yourself," Duffy said.
And Duffy said a series of three ads in which Grimes talked to supporters about McConnell's record — giving her the opportunity to talk about her positions — didn't work.
Reporter Joseph Gerth can be reached at (502) 582-4702. Follow him on Twitter at @Joe_Gerth.
