After slight at voting booth, McConnell predicts ‘good day’ for GOP

Reporting from Louisville, Ky. —  Sen. Mitch McConnell may well win reelection because he successfully persuaded Kentucky voters to view the race as a referendum on President Obama’s six years in office instead of his 30. After all, Obama’s approval rating was just 32% among voters here in an NBC/Marist poll released Sunday.

But the Senate’s Republican leader hails from a dark blue city in a deeply red state, and he cast his own ballot Tuesday morning in a precinct where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than two-to-one. And so, on the day he might finally attain his goal of becoming the Senate majority leader, he had to endure a few slights in his own backyard.

As he cast his ballot at a local university here, photographers captured another voter two booths behind him signaling his disapproval of the Republican with a thumbs down gesture. One of the shots was quickly circulated by the campaign of his Democratic opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes.

Earlier McConnell may have found another reason to take odds with his hometown newspaper, the Courier Journal (he dismissively refers to it as the “Curious Journal”). Wrapped around the front page was a final advertisement for Grimes, which excerpted the paper’s endorsement of the Democrat in large, bold letters. It appeared just below a picture of a smiling McConnell the day before on the regular front page.

McConnell, though, seemed unfazed by it all as he navigated through a media scrum to cast his vote Tuesday. He largely dodged questions shouted by reporters and said only that he was “feeling good” and had slept “very well” the night before.

“The suspense is about to end,” he said.

Asked later who he’d voted for, McConnell laughed.

“I think we’re going to have a good day here in Kentucky and hopefully around the country,” he said.

Asked what his first vote in the new Senate would be on, McConnell stayed on message.

“I’m hoping we’re going to have a new majority to take America in a different direction. We’ll find out tonight,” he said.
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