Looks like Democrats are giving up on the Senate race in Kentucky

(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

last updated 8 January 2015

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will not be airing ads in Kentucky in the final three weeks of a hard-fought campaign to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), according to Roll Call. The surprise news is a sign that Democrats have all but given up hope that their candidate, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, will defeat the longtime incumbent.

Grimes has come under withering criticism in the national press for numerous perceived failings, including most recently for declining to state who she voted for in the 2008 presidential election. (Chances are that she voted for President Obama, but he remains deeply unpopular in Kentucky.) The New Republic declared that Grimes is "running the worst Senate campaign of the year."

Still, she must be doing something right. According to a new poll from Gravis Marketing of likely registered voters, Grimes trails McConnell by a paltry three points (within the margin of error), despite the fact that Obama's approval ratings in Kentucky are at a dismal 36 percent. And McConnell's approval ratings aren't much better, at 37 percent, according to an August poll by Public Policy Polling. If Grimes ends up losing by a whisker, the DSCC's decision could come back to haunt it.