Republicans:

Ernie Fletcher is in good shape. His 10 point lead over Anne Northup may be more solid than either of them is willing to acknowledge. The new poll was more heavily weighted to Northup's home area of Louisville and surrounding counties with 25% of those polled coming from that region. That's probably why she gained 2 points. Northup correctly points out that a larger percentage of Jefferson County republicans go to the polls and that will help her. But Fletcher has a bigger reason for optimism. He's killing Northup among voters who are 50 years old and older (49%-31%), but only 37% of the poll respondents were older republicans, 63% were under 50. In primary elections, it's the older die hards that get to the polls, clearly helping Fletcher. Billy Harper has a news conference scheduled for wednesday afternoon to unveil his new TV ad but it's not going to help him. He appears dead in the water and should chalk up his $5 million spent as a lesson learned.

Democrats:

Obviously the huge story of the day is Steve Beshear. He wins every region of the state except for the Louisville area counties where Steve Henry wins with 33% to Beshear's 23%. Bruce Lunsford has the best organization and best TV commercials, but Beshear has been the most dynamic candidate at the forums I've attended. Getting Jonathan Miller's endorsement and the endorsements of most of the state's major newspapers hasn't hurt Beshear, especially with the under 30 crowd that's probably never heard of him. Beshear is ahead of Lunsford by 8 or 9 points in every age group, though Beshear is curiously running behind both Lunsford and Henry among black voters. Perhaps it's because Jefferson County's black population knows Lunsford and Henry, but not the Lexington lawyer Beshear. To Lunsford's credit, he hasn't whined about Survey USA like other candidates have done in the past.
While Beshear has failed to articulate a "Plan B" for financing all of the new programs he's promising, his opponents have failed to catch up to democratic voters on two fronts: Beshear's got alot less personal baggage than Lunsford and Henry and polling has repeatedly shown the overwhelming majority of Kentuckians, especially democrats, favor putting the casino question on the ballot.
And like Billy Harper, Jody Richards' prediction last week that he would definitely be in the runoff election should be chalked up as bold optimism with no basis in fact.