– Residents of Sen. Rand Paul’s home state are ambivalent over whether he should run for president in 2016.
The latest Bluegrass Poll of 1,917 registered voters in Kentucky showed the divide over Paul’s future.
Nineteen percent said he should run for president and another 19 percent said he should seek re-election to the Senate.
Twenty three percent said he should run for both offices at the same time, which is Paul’s expected course of action.
Thirty percent said Paul shouldn’t pursue either office and nine percent of those surveyed weren’t sure, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader, which sponsored the SurveyUSA poll along with WKYT-TV in Lexington, The Courier-Journal in Louisville and WHAS-TV in Louisville.
"Voters commonly show a reluctance to see their elected officials run for higher office," University of Kentucky political science professor Stephen Voss told the Herald-Leader regarding the poll numbers. "We want them working for us and we get jealous if they start flirting with other voters. But does it matter electorally? I doubt it matters much. People often answer questions of principle in one way and then respond completely differently in practice."