Mongiardo claims 15-point lead; Conway calls it ‘spin’

May 28, 2009 | Jack Brammer | Comments 14

Daniel Mongiardo (left) and Jack Conway

FRANKFORT – Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo’s campaign for the U.S. Senate claims in an internal poll that he holds a 15-point lead over Attorney General Jack Conway among registered Democrats.

The poll of 336 registered Democrats showed Mongiardo outdistancing Conway 43 percent to 28 percent, with 29 percent undecided. A memo from Mongiardo’s pollster, Garin Hart Yang Research of Washington, D.C., said the poll was conducted May 12 and 13 and has a margin of error of 5.4 percentage points.

The Mongiardo campaign claimed an even larger lead – 46 percent to 26 percent — over Conway among “core” Democrats – those who voted in the 2007 or 2008 primary elections.

“Daniel Mongiardo’s impressive lead reflects strong support among grassroots Democrats, who know that despite overwhelming odds Daniel Mongiardo almost beat Jim Bunning in 2004 and that in 2010 Daniel Mongiardo is going to finish what he started by winning this race for Kentucky families whether against Jim Bunning or whoever is named as his relief pitcher,” Mongiardo spokesman Kim Geveden said in a statement.

Conway’s campaign immediately attacked the poll, dismissing it as “all spin.”

“There is an old Kentucky saying that liars figure and figures lie,” Mark Riddle, Conway’s campaign manager, said in a statement. “A polling sub sample of 336 interviews in a major statewide election is not considered credible. It has a wildly high margin of error. It is curious and fair to ask why would they not release the rest of the poll? Who paid for the poll? And how were the questions asked and then pushed?”

Riddle said Mongiardo’s decision to brag about polling that shows him with less than 50 percent of the vote is questionable given that Mongiardo has “spent the past seven years doing little else other than campaigning, piling up a tremendous campaign debt, and … done little as an elected official to help Kentucky families.”

Riddle noted that the only independent public poll in the race shows that Conway is the only Democrat who could beat both incumbent Sen. Jim Bunning and Secretary of State Trey Grayson, who has formed an exploratory committee for the race.

Bunning, R-Southgate, has held the seat since 1998. He is widely considered to be the most vulnerable incumbent Senator seeking re-election.

Other Republicans who may seek the seat are Grayson; Cathy Bailey, a former U.S. ambassador to Latvia; state Senate President David Williams; and Rand Paul, a Bowling Green ophthalmologist who is the son of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.

On the Democratic side, U.S. Customs officer Darlene Fitzgerald Price of Whitley City has said she also will seek the Democratic nomination.

–Jack Brammer