Two new polls have been released that show it's going to be very tough for the Republicans to win a majority of seats in the U.S. Senate. The first is the Vox Populi Polling survey taken in New Hampshire. It was taken on May 14th and 15th of 707 active voters, and has a margin of error of 3.6 points (5.2 points for the Republican primary voters).
Scott Brown was encouraged to move from Massachusetts (where he lost the last election) to New Hampshire, and run for the senate seat currently held by Democrat Jeanne Shaheen. It was believed that he had a higher profile, and would have a good chance to unseat Shaheen. As you can see, Brown looks like he will probably win the GOP primary in New Hampshire pretty easily. But when matched against Sen. Shaheen, he is currently 12 points down. That's a lot of ground to make up before November.
Then we have the race in Kentucky:
The newest results in Kentucky come from the Bluegrass Poll -- taken between May 14th and 16th of 2,000 Kentucky adults, with a margin of error of about 2.1 points (4 points when only Republicans are considered). Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has an opponent in the Republican primary -- teabagger Matt Bevins.
It looks like McConnell will easily beat his GOP opponent, but when it comes to the general election, he will have a much tougher time defeating Democrat Alison Grimes. Polls have shown the two in a dead heat for several months now. The last two polls I saw had McConnell ahead by a single point, while this poll has Grimes ahead by one point. But one point is well within the margin of error for all of those polls, and that means this race remains a tie.
This is extraordinary. It is almost unheard of for a party leader in Congress (of either party) to not be re-elected, but that could happen to McConnell (who remains very unpopular with a large segment of Kentucky voters). About 56% of the state's registered voters don't like the job McConnell has done in the Senate, while only 34% say he's done a good job. And his personal favorability numbers aren't much better (49% unfavorable to 29% favorable). There's a real chance McConnell could be unseated in November.
