Daily Political Wire

George Wenschhof 

Poll Shows Alison Lundergan Grimes Leading McConnell - New poll numbers released Thursday suggested that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is entering his re-election campaign next year facing two perilous obstacles: an electorate that wants him out of office and a viable Democratic challenger.
 
The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling — conducted on behalf of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and Democracy For America and provided in advance to TPM — found Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who launched her Senate campaign on Tuesday, drawing the support of 45 percent of Bluegrass State voters and narrowly edging McConnell by a single point. Eleven percent of voters said they are undecided.

A slight majority of Kentucky voters — 51 percent — disapprove of the job McConnell is doing...  TPM.com has more here.

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Outcome in Six States likely To Democratic Senate Majority in 2014 - The states include four Democratic held seats — Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina — and two GOP-held seats — Kentucky and Georgia. And Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) made the case that Republicans will have to come close to running the table.

“This is what the majority in the Senate’s going to come down to,” he said. “Republicans have to essentially sweep these races in order to win the majority, winning at least five of the six.”

The way the Senate landscape is looking right now, Bennet is probably right.

But implicit in Bennet’s statement is the acknowledgement that Democrats face increasingly long odds of holding open seats — or at least still need to recruit a candidate — in three red states with retiring Democratic incumbents: Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia.  TheFix.com has more here.

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Student Loan Plan Approved By Congress - The millions of college students and parents who will borrow money from the federal government for the coming school year can plan on much lower interest rates than originally offered, as the U.S. House overwhelmingly voted 392 to 31 on Wednesday to approve a Senate plan that would allow interest rates to move with the financial markets.

The plan now goes to President Obama, who has already voiced support. House Republican leaders have deemed this a long-term solution, while many Democrats have said this plan will probably need tweaking in future years.  The Washington Post has more here.

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Top Republican Says To Stop Unrealistic Sequestration Cuts - In a surprisingly frank statement released Wednesday, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee is warning his own party that deep across-the-board budget cuts scheduled to go into effect next year as part of the ongoing budget “sequestration” are unsustainable.

"Sequestration -- and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts -- must be brought to an end,” Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., said in the statement. NBC News has more here.

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U.S., Pakistan Agree to Re-establish a "Full Partnership" - The United States and Pakistan agreed on Thursday to re-establish a "full partnership", hoping to end years of acrimony over U.S. drone strikes on Pakistani soil, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and other grievances.

"We are here to speak honestly with each other, openly about any gaps that may exist that we want to try to bridge," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said during an unannounced visit to Islamabad. "Our people deserve that we talk directly."  Reuters.com has more here.

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