Alison Lundergan Grimes brought her US Senate campaign back to Northern Kentucky on Saturday with stops in Newport and Covington.
The Democratic Secretary of State is in a tight race with Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, though most recent polls show the incumbent pulling away from Grimes — except for one internal poll from the Democrat’s campaign that showed her up a point.
Grimes addressed a women’s group in Newport and then christened her Northern Kentucky campaign headquarters on Pike Street in Covington where she said the overflow crowd was indicative of momentum being on her side.
“I think the polls have shown we’re neck and neck,” Grimes said to reporters after her prepared remarks to supporters. “Kentuckians are overwhelmingly supportive of my work as secretary of state.” But even the internal poll placed Grimes’s approval rating at 38%.
With just 52 days before the November election, if there is to be a change in messaging for the Grimes campaign, it was not on display Saturday in Covington. She stuck to her familiar talking points of favoring an increase in the minimum wage, equal pay for women, and working through a bipartisan manner in Washington to fix the funding of the highway trust fund so that projects like the $2.6 billion Brent Spence Bridge project can be completed without the use of tolls.
One missed point that leading progressive writers have encouraged Grimes to pursue is the early success of kynect, the expanded Medicaid pool and access to affordable health care in Kentucky made possible through the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. More than half a million Kentuckians now have insurance thanks to the program.
Grimes did not mention it in her prepared remarks but was asked about it afterwards.
“I want to make sure we’re not ripping insurance from 500,000 people in Kentucky,” she said. Grimes called out McConnell for his consistent calls to repeal Obamacare, a move that would eliminate half a million Kentuckians from their current insurance plans only recently made accessible to them. When asked why that point is not a regular part of her stump speech, Grimes said that there are thirty years of history to go through, a reference to McConnell’s five terms in the US Senate.
With polls showing McConnell likely returning for a sixth six-year term, Grimes showed no signs of a strategy shift in Covington. She was complimentary of State Rep. Arnold Simpson, the Covington Democrat who introduced her to the crowd that filled the new headquarters, with some pouring into the street.
That was all the signs Grimes needed to express optimism about victory. She said she won her first election for secretary of state in 2011 because “Northern Kentucky showed up” and noted that she got more votes than Gov. Steve Beshear that year. “You show up again and you’ll have your first female senator,” she told the enthusiastic crowd.
“We used to have a senator in Wendell Ford who knew this state like I do,” Grimes said. “Now we’ve got a senator who can’t find Northern Kentucky without the help of a GPS.” She assures supporters that if McConnell were reelected, there would only be more gridlock and more government shutdowns, like the one that so terribly impacted Downtown Covington when the IRS offices were closed earlier this year.Â
“He won’t even consider any gosh darn proposals that will help our college students afford to go to college,” she said. “(McConnell) can back Wall Street, I’ll back our students.”
In 52 days, she said, Northern Kentucky voters will return a fighter to Frankfort in Rep. Simpson, who is running opposed. And they’ll send a fighter to Washington, if Grimes wins, she said.Â
“They know I deliver on my promises.”
Story & photos by Michael Monks, editor & publisher of The River City News
Former Covington Mayor Denny Bowman and State Rep. Arnold Simpson
Grimes autographs a young supporter’s sign
Grimes speaks to her supporters in Covington
Grimes’s new campaign headquarters on Pike Street in Covington
