CN2 Polls Give Yarmuth, Fischer Leads

The latest polls from Insight’s CN2 give…

Democratic incumbent Congressman John Yarmuth a 26-point lead over Republican challenger Todd Lally (57.9% to 31.4% with 2.6% undecided)

Democratic mayoral candidate Greg Fischer a 9-point lead over Republican candidate Hal Heiner (46.7% to 36.8% with 11.6% undecided)

Both Democrats have extended their leads since previous CN2 polls, but WHAS-11/Courier-Journal Bluegrass Polls have put both races closer. The CN2 polls were conducted by Braun Research on October 18th and 19th.

Here’s an interesting bit from the story on the mayoral poll:

Danny Briscoe, a longtime political consultant who resides in Louisville, said if Fischer is up nearly double digits, developments in his campaign — such as changing his position on how to address the school assignment plan and the questions surrounding the Green endorsement — shouldn’t be happening.

“I’m amazed he’s doing all the things he’s doing (if he’s up nine),” Briscoe said. “It seems inconsistent to me that he would be doing those things.”

The poll shows that Jefferson County is leaning heavily Democratic in a year where the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate hails from Louisville, and the area’s congressman, U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, is also on the ballot.

The poll also shows out-going Louisville mayor Jerry Abramson with a 71 percent approval rating.

The third paragraph confirms what U of L professor Jasmine Farrier said in a recent story.

Listen To The Yarmuth/Lally Forum

WFPL’s Rick Howlett covered the debate between Democratic Congressman John Yarmuth and Republican challenger Todd Lally at the Louisville Forum’s Wednesday meeting. Read the story and listen to the full audio here.

Third District Candidates On State Of Affairs

On Thursday, Democratic Congressman John Yarmuth appeared on WFPL’s State of Affairs. Here is the audio.

Yarmuth is running for re-election to the Third District seat against Republican Todd Lally, who was on the show last week. Here is the audio.

Also in the race are Libertarian Ed Martin and independent Michael Hansen.

House Competition Picks Up

While FiveThirtyEight doesn’t see much competition in Kentucky’s 3rd Congressional District, the site does say the competition for other seats has increased. In fact, the number of competitive House races has doubled this cycle.

Currently, the folks at Cook Political consider a total of 87 House races to be either toss-ups or to merely “lean” toward one or the other party. This is an unprecedented number in recent history. At a comparable point in the past six election cycles — that is, with about 25 days to go until the election — Cook Political had put the number of highly competitive races at between 34 and 56; this year’s figure is roughly twice as high.

Cook Political and the other expert forecasters that our model uses have a very good track record — but if they have a flaw, it’s that they can be overly cautious, characterizing some races as being highly competitive when that isn’t necessarily borne out by objective evidence. Perhaps they’re simply hedging too much this year?

FiveThirtyEight predicts the GOP will gain 47 or 48 seats.

Hear The Yarmuth/Lally Debate

Incumbent Democratic Congressman John Yarmuth and Republican challenger Todd Lally had a lively debate at U of L this week. WFPL’s Rick Howlett was there, and he has posted the entire debate online.

FOP Endorses Yarmuth

Noting his work securing federal grants for law enforcement, the Kentucky State Lodge Fraternal Order of Police Tuesday endorsed 3rd District Congressman John Yarmuth in his race against Republican challenger Todd Lally.

The Yarmuth campaign sent the following:

“It is always an honor to stand side-by-side with the men and women who put their lives on the line every day on behalf of our community,” said Congressman Yarmuth. “Their service and sacrifice is a critical part of what makes our community great, and I am humbled and proud to have their support.”

The Kentucky State Lodge Fraternal Order of Police is comprised of more than 9,000 men and women involved in law enforcement in Louisville and across the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Congressman Yarmuth has worked together with law enforcement officials in Louisville on numerous occassions over his first two terms in Congress, helping secure $6 million in COPS funding to hire 32 new LMPD officers and $1.2 million to put new mobile data computers in LMPD cruisers.  He also successfully fought to add Jefferson County to the national HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) program, giving law enforcement agencies across our community new resources and tools to fight drug trafficking.

FiveThirtyEight Considers Third And Sixth District Races

FiveThirtyEight (now part of the New York Times) is giving Democratic incumbent John Yarmuth a 4.9% chance of losing the Third District House seat to Republican Todd Lally. By considering and weighing different polls that have been conducted in the race, the site predicts that Yarmuth will win by eleven points in November.

In Kentucky’s Sixth District, the outlook is not as positive. While FiveThirtyEight gives Democratic incumbent Ben Chandler a 59% chance of winning over Republican Andy Barr, the site predicts Chandler will have only a 1.7-point lead on Election Day.

Candidate Interviews

Third District Republican candidate Todd Lally was on State of Affairs last week. Democratic incumbent John Yarmuth will be on this week. Here is Lally’s interview. We’ll post Yarmuth’s once it exists.

Two mayoral candidates have been on State of Affairs so far. Here is Independent Jackie Green and Republican Hal Heiner. Democratic candidate Greg Fischer will be on soon.

For more candidate interviews, you can watch CN2’s Ryan Alessi talk with Fischer and Heiner.

And, of course, the Courier-Journal editorial board’s candidate interview videos are online, too.

Ads, Ads, Ads

If yesterday’s dose of campaign ads wasn’t enough…

First, the NRSC has a new ad accusing Democratic Senate candidate Jack Conway of waffling (flip-flopping, etc) on the Bush tax cuts (which Conway wants to extend). The spot swipes the Waffle House theme Conway’s supporters used at Fancy Farm to mock Republican candidate Rand Paul, who is no stranger to accusations of backtracking.

Next, incumbent Democratic Congressman John Yarmuth (who is running against Todd Lally) emphasizes jobs and GE in his latest ad.

And finally (for now), Democratic mayoral candidate Greg Fischer talks about education in his new ad. He says it’s time to fix the JCPS student assignment plan. Republican Hal Heiner and independent Jackie Green both favor scrapping the plan. Heiner says school diversity is still important, but he is calling for a new approach to education that would expand the magnet school program and offer incentives to teachers who work in under-performing schools. Green, however, says affordable housing should be more evenly distributed across the city. That, he says, would make neighborhoods and schools diverse.

Lally Launches First TV Ads

Republican Congressional candidate Todd Lally has released his first television ad. The spot gives a short biography of the candidate, criticizes incumbent Democrat John Yarmuth and touches on conservative economic points (jobs, debt, etc). You can watch it here. Lally has another, more negative ad as well.

Yarmuth is also running ads in the race. His latest is an updated version of this 2008 spot.