This seems about right. McGrath will get closer than anyone has but won't pull it out.
Bruce Lunsford lost to McConnell by 5% in 2008, and Harvey Sloane lost to him by 4% in 1990. I don't think McGrath will get as close as Lunsford or Sloane did, although she could probably come within high single digits if Democrats are having a good night.
This turned out to be
very optimistic, almost fantastical, in hindsight. McGrath lost to McConnell by 20%, doing worse than all of McConnell's prior vanquished opponents (Huddleston, Sloane, Beshear, Lunsford, and Lundergan-Grimes) with the exception of Lois Combs Weinberg, who lost to McConnell by 30% in 2002. McGrath only won three counties-Fayette, Franklin, and Jefferson-which last voted for McConnell in 2002. 2002, in fact, was the
only election in which McConnell carried Franklin County. But he won Elliott County for the first time ever, and carried all of the other rural counties which these previous Democrats had won against him.
