New Bluegrass Poll Finds Steve Beshear At 52%, David Williams At 28%, Undecideds At 11%, And Gatewood Galbraith At 9%!

Gov. Steve Beshear holds a commanding 24-point lead over his challenger, Senate President David Williams, in Kentucky's governor's race, according to the latest Courier-Journal/WHAS11 Bluegrass Poll.

The poll found that Beshear leads Williams 52 percent to 28 percent and that the incumbent governor is ahead in all but three demographic areas. Independent Gatewood Galbraith is a distant third with 9 percent of the vote.

Conducted by SurveyUSA, the poll is based on computerized and live telephone interviews carried out from July 22– to 27. It includes the responses of 512 likely voters in the Nov. 8 governor's race and has a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

Among Williams' problems, the poll found that more than a third of the voters don't like him, while Beshear remains in good standing with nearly half of the voters despite a sluggish economy.

Thirty-six percent of voters said they hold an unfavorable opinion of Williams, a Republican who has been a polarizing leader of the state Senate since 2001, while only 21 percent said they had a favorable opinion of him. Twenty percent said they had a neutral opinion, and another 18 percent said they didn't know what they thought about him.

Meanwhile, Beshear, a Democrat, is viewed favorably by 48 percent of voters and unfavorably by 21 percent. Twenty-two percent said they were neutral, while another 9 percent said they didn't know what they thought of him.

Beshear's campaign refused to comment on the poll's findings, other than when Democratic Party spokesman Matt Erwin said, “While the governor is always gratified by the support of Kentuckians, he remains focused on creating jobs in every corner of Kentucky.”

The Williams campaign expressed optimism that as voters learn more about Beshear and his record, they will turn to Williams.

“Beshear has a terrible record on jobs. He and (his running mate Jerry Abramson) are not pro-life,” said Williams campaign manager Luke Marchant. “They both openly endorse Obama's dramatically unpopular health care plan and war on Kentucky coal.”

Marchant said, “David will stand up for conservative values on all of those issues, and he has a real plan to create jobs. Steve Beshear is content to tread water and tow Obama's line.”

According to the poll, both men and women support Beshear, although women were more likely than men to do so. People of all age groups said they were more likely to back the incumbent, as were both black and white voters.

Both people reached on land lines and those reached on their cellphones also were more likely to vote for Beshear.

It didn't matter how often respondents went to church, whether they backed abortion rights or if they owned guns — they all said they would vote for Beshear, the poll found. He holds the lead in all regions of the state, among all income groups and among those who have or don't have college degrees.

The only areas in which Williams leads is among Republicans, conservatives and tea party members. And the lead among conservatives was less than a majority — 45 percent to 33 percent.

Among independents, Galbraith is second, behind Beshear, with 32 percent of the vote. Beshear got 34 percent among independents, and Williams got 11 percent. Galbraith also polled better than Williams with liberals.

Elizabeth Isaacs, a Republican from Madison County who was polled and agreed to a follow-up interview, said she plans to vote for Beshear in November, not because of policy but because she just doesn't like Williams. She said she has friends who know Williams who tell her “he's just not a nice man.”

“It's sad to say, but it doesn't matter where you stand on the issues if nobody likes you,” said the 31-year-old stay-at-home mom. “Even if I agreed with everything (Williams and his running mate, Richie Farmer) said, because of the likeability issue, I couldn't bring myself to cast a vote in their favor.”

Isaacs said she has met Beshear and his wife, Jane, and found them to be “personable and really patient.”

And would she vote for Galbraith? “Bless his heart,” she said. “I just couldn't bring myself to do that.”

John Watrous, 35, an environmental consultant and a Democrat from Louisville, said he plans to vote for Beshear. “Primarily because he's out of the Democratic Party,” he said. “But I think he's done a good job with his budget, and because of that, Kentucky is in better economic condition than other states.”

Watrous said he believes Beshear has taken a more measured approach to cutting the budget “rather than drastic or heavy-handed,” which is how he thinks Williams would handle it.

John Miles, 53, a Republican from Corbin, said he plans to vote for Williams because he doesn't like what Beshear has done since he was elected.

“Unemployment, he raised taxes out the wazoo on cigarettes; road work is still crap in this state,” he said. “Give me one instance where he has improved this state. We still lack in education, we still lack in health care.”

Miles, who said he considers himself a member of the tea party, isn't thrilled with Williams either, but he said the Senate president is the lesser of the evils.

Political analysts say Williams' poor showing in the poll indicates that he needs to introduce himself to voters and give them a reason not to vote for Beshear — both of which will cost lots of money, potentially more than Williams will have at his disposal.

“It means it will probably be a very negative fall,” said Democratic political consultant Danny Briscoe, who is helping Republican KC Crosbie in the state treasurer's race. “Williams will be forced to run a very strong attack-oriented campaign.”

Republican Ted Jackson, who ran Larry Forgy's gubernatorial campaign in 1995, said there is little positive that Williams can take away from the poll results. He said Williams must associate Beshear with President Barack Obama, who remains unpopular with Kentucky voters.

Jennifer Duffy, senior editor at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said Williams may not have the money now to change voter opinion and that poll results like these could make it more difficult to raise money in the future.

In June, Beshear said his campaign had $2.7 million on hand, while Williams had only $89,363.

According to the analysts, a minor bright spot for Williams is that a significant percentage of voters don't know who he is and therefore haven't formed an opinion of him.

“He's got a hard name ID of 57 (percent) so he's unknown to a lot of people,” Duffy said. “It's a problem and a bit of an opportunity. … It does give him some room to grow, but the bad news is … voters don't seem to like him.”

All three experts believe that the poll says more about Williams than Beshear.

“I think Beshear actually achieved this by taking almost no risks whatsoever,” Duffy said. “That's gotten him those numbers, but nobody will say he was an aggressive governor that changed things.”