Doug Mataconis · · 3 comments

After a bumpy post-primary, Rand Paul seems to have had a very good summer:

With just under two months until Kentucky’s U.S. Senate election, a new WHAS11/Courier-Journal Bluegrass Poll shows Republican Rand Paul nearly doubling his lead in the last month, now up 15 points over Democrat Jack Conway, 55% to 40%. Since last month, Paul is up 4 points; Conway is down 3.

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The poll, conducted by Survey USA, also indicates that Kentucky voters are increasingly identifying themselves as Republican or Independent while identifying less with the Democratic Party. The disproportionate representation compared to actual voter registration and previous voter turnout prompted the Conway campaign to dispute the poll.

“The methodology of this poll is sort of out of line and we certainly question some of the ways that the poll was conducted,” said Conway Press Secretary Allison Haley.

“I do think the momentum of the state is with us,” said Paul, “What the exact number is…. we’re happy to be 15 ahead. That’s for sure.”

While neither Paul or his campaign staff expressed confidence in the poll’s 15 point margin, the candidate welcomed the poll as a sign that his fiscal conservative, Tea Party message is resonating.

“We’re excited about it. Everywhere I go across Kentucky we think people are concerned about the debt,” Paul said, “They want somebody who will go up there and shake things up, somebody who will introduce a balanced budget amendment, somebody who’s for term limits, somebody who understands that the system’s broken. We can’t just keep on spending and borrowing, spending and borrowing.”

Conversely, the Conway campaign says it believes that it’s effort to inform voters of Paul’s views on U.S. and local drug policy have narrowed the contest, rather than the widening Paul lead indicated in the poll.

“Recently, Rand Paul has made a lot of statements in opposition to combating drugs in our Kentucky communities,” Haley said, “and that has not caused him to surge in the polls. We feel like this is, the poll is just simply inaccurate.”

“I think that in general, the media is not necessarily our friends,” Paul said when asked about the recent unflattering publicity, “And they’ve brought up a lot of things to try to skew the race one way or the other.”

“What is the most important thing right now? It’s jobs and the economy to people,” Paul continued, “So that’s what’s motivating people and how they’re going to vote. It doesn’t mean that I’m not concerned about a whole host of issues. And I think that was wrongly sort of interpreted and really I think by some who had an agenda.”