BOWLING GREEN —
Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway appeared to have defeated Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo in a close race for their party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate as results continued to come in around 10 p.m. EDT Tuesday.
Shortly after 10 p.m., the Associated Press declared Conway the winner. He was leading Mongiardo 44 to 43 percent and by about 5,000 votes, 226,000 to 221,000. That included 98 percent of the precincts.
Conway will face Republican Rand Paul, who pummeled Secretary of State Trey Grayson for their party’s nomination. The race will pit the very conservative Paul, who is supported by the TEA Party and riding a wave of anti-Washington sentiment, against Conway who is associated with the state Democratic Party’s progressive wing and who has said he would have voted for the health care reform bill.
It also means Conway will have to again battle the rural versus urban charge Mongiardo mounted but which ultimately failed, largely because of the strength of support Conway pulled from his hometown of Louisville and the Lexington urban area in the Sixth Congressional District.
Mongiardo fell short in a second attempt at the Senate seat he almost wrested from retiring Republican Sen. Jim Bunning in 2004, when he lost by just 2 percentage points. He had led for most the campaign in publicly released polls, but a barrage of negative ads from Conway questioning Mongiardo’s use of a state housing stipend for the lieutenant governor helped Conway erase all but three points of a 15-point lead in just over a month.
Subsequent polls right before the election seemed to show Mongiardo had stemmed the tide after he went on the air with his own ads, but Conway said late in the race his polling showed him with the momentum and former Sen. Wendell Ford — who Conway called “Kentucky’s most beloved Democrat” — endorsed Conway and toured the state campaigning for him.
The campaign was characterized by charges by one candidate against the other, mostly questioning their ethics in their respective offices. Louisville political consultant said the low turnout — about 25 percent statewide — was a reflection of the inability of the candidates to address the real concerns of voters, jobs and anxiety about the economy.
Mongiardo tried to define Conway as an urban, elitist — “from the silver spoon set” — while portraying himself as a conservative, populist Democrat who would fight for Kentuckians and Kentucky values. He was badly outspent on advertising but was thought to have a better grass roots organization and hoped to take advantage of low voter turnout to get more of his voters to the polls. But in the end it didn’t work.
Conway held onto votes in the urban areas and utilized the support and endorsements of leading Democratic figures like Ford and, former Gov. Paul Patton, House Speaker Greg Stumbo and state Auditor Crit Luallen to offset Mongiardo’s organization.
As of press time, Mongiardo had not conceded nor had Conway declared victory.
RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow CNHI News Service stories on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cnhifrankfort.
Copyright ｩ 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.
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