By Patrick Crowley
The Cincinnati Enquirer

FORT WRIGHT - Private and partisan polling has given Republican incumbent Jim Bunning an early lead in Kentucky's U.S. Senate race.

In a statewide Louisville Courier-Journal Bluegrass Poll done last month, 50 percent of voters said they would choose Bunning, a Northern Kentucky native and Southgate resident, while 29 percent would vote for Democrat Dan Mongiardo.

Bunning also leads in a poll commissioned in late May by the Mongiardo campaign.

That poll of 504 Kentucky voters shows Bunning with a 48 percent to 39 percent lead over Mongiardo with 13 percent undecided. It was conducted May 19 and 20 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

The Mongiardo campaign said the poll numbers are impressive because Bunning has only a single-digit lead even though the incumbent maintains an advantage of 83 percent to 49 percent in name recognition.

"This poll shows that the people of Kentucky have decided that they are ready for new leadership and a new direction," said Mongiardo, a state Senator from Hazard.

In the Bluegrass Poll of 1,014 likely voters conducted in early May, 78 percent of voters had heard of Bunning compared to just 24 percent for Mongiardo. The poll carried a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

David Young, Bunning's campaign manager, said the Bunning camp is not taking Mongiardo's poll seriously.

"The 49 percent name identification in this fluff Democratic poll is ridiculous since a Bluegrass Poll released almost a week before this one had his name identification in the lower twenties," Young said. "We are doing our own polling and are very happy where Sen. Bunning stands with Kentuckians."

The Mongiardo campaign said it did find a bright spot in the Bluegrass Poll. It found that 35 percent of voters said they would vote to re-elect Bunning, down from 41 percent in a Bluegrass Poll done in early February.

Also, 38 percent of voters said they would vote to replace him or consider voting for someone else.

E-mail pcrowley@enquirer.com