Kentucky Senate hopeful Alison Lundergan Grimes has suddenly leapt ahead of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell by two percentage points in a new poll.
The SurveyUSA Bluegrass Poll puts Grimes in front of the five-term Republican incumbent by 46 percent to 44 percent among likely voters.
The figures released on Monday represent a 6-point swing to the Democrat since the Kentucky survey was last held in late August, according to
The Courier-Journal.
The poll, conducted with 632 people between Sept. 29 and Oct. 2, has cast a shadow over nonpartisan surveys in September that give Sen. McConnell a lead ranging from 4 to 8 points, according to the
Huffington Post.
The new survey parallels Grimes' internal polling conducted by pollster Mark Mellman, who has correctly called long-shot races for Democrats in North Dakota and Nevada.
But HuffPost Pollster's Senate model maintains that McConnell has a 4-point lead over Grimes and a 63 percent chance of winning, which the Post says is "moderately better than a toss-up."
McConnell's spokeswoman Allison Moore quickly poured scorn on the new poll, according to The Courier-Journal.
"After fourteen straight public polls all showing Sen. McConnell with a clear lead, this Bluegrass Poll is obviously an outlier," she said. "We're very comfortable with where this race stands and are confident Sen. McConnell will be re-elected in November."
But Grimes campaign manager Jonathan Hurst said the survey "reflects the overwhelming grassroots enthusiasm Alison and our campaign see every day across the commonwealth."
Last week Grimes, the Kentucky secretary of state, enlisted
former President Bill Clinton, a longtime family friend, to appear in a TV ad in support of her campaign.
But on Monday, a hidden-camera video showed Grimes being accused by her own campaign team of telling bald-faced lies about supporting the state's coal industry.
The video captured Grimes' staffers and employees of local Democratic Party affiliates claiming that she's
pushing the coal industry purely for political purposes in a desperate bid to defeat McConnell.