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Bunning will seek reelection in 2010.

(CNN) – Republican Senator Jim Bunning declared emphatically Tuesday that he is running for re-election in 2010, despite his cash-poor war chest and reports that some Republicans want him to step aside.

On a conference call with local reporters in Kentucky, Bunning also expressed frustration with fellow Kentuckian, Sen. Mitch McConnell, who said last week he wasn’t sure what Bunning’s intentions are for the upcoming cycle.

“He either had a lapse of memory or something when speaking to the Press Club last week when he said that he didn't know what my intentions were,” Bunning said of the Senate Minority Leader, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. “He knew very well what my intentions were.”

Bunning suggested McConnell wasn’t being truthful.

“I had an hour-long meeting with Sen. McConnell in the first week of December in 2008, and we thoroughly discussed my candidacy for the Senate in that hour meeting in my office in Northern Kentucky, and gave him every indication that I was going to run again,” Bunning said on the call.

Bunning, the 77-year old former baseball player, already has at least one challenger for the seat: Kentucky Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo, who nearly unseated Bunning in 2004. Other state Democrats are mulling whether to jump in the race.

(CNN) – Kentucky Lt. Governor Dan Mongiardo, a Democrat and practicing surgeon, announced Monday he plans to challenge Republican Sen. Jim Bunning in 2010.

The move sets up a possible rematch of the memorable 2004 Senate race, in which Bunning ran what was regarded by many as a lackadaisical campaign but still managed to eke out a win over Mongiardo by just 1.4 percentage points.

Mongiardo said in a statement he will “launch a vigorous campaign replace Senator Jim Bunning” and pledged to focus on shoring up America’s health care system if elected.

Bunning, a former Major League All-Star who has served in the Senate since 1998, is seen as one of the most vulnerable incumbents of the 2010 cycle. According to The Hill, some bluegrass Republicans are mulling asking Bunning to stand down to make room for a more energetic candidate.

Mongiardo is the first Democrat to announce a challenge to Bunning, but other state officials are reportedly eyeing the seat as well.

From CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider

(CNN) - It's no surprise CNN has called Vermont for Barack Obama and Kentucky for John McCain. A look at the exit polls shows that both men won nearly every demographic across the board. These two states could not be more different!

Kentucky: 

Vermont:

(CNN) - If Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination, should he pick Hillary Clinton as his running mate?

Roughly 54 percent of Democratic voters in Kentucky said yes - but supporters of both candidates are sharply divided on whether the New York senator should get the No. 2 spot.

Among Clinton voters in Kentucky, 64 percent said she should be the vice presidential candidate, while 33 percent said she should not.

But Obama supporters are much more against the idea of Clinton claiming the vice presidential slot on the ticket with Obama. Close to 60 percent of them say the Illinois senator should not pick Clinton as his running mate, while only 38 percent think he should.

It's yet another issue where Clinton and Obama supporters are sharply divided.

Were voters swayed by Edwards' decision to back Obama?

(CNN) – Is John Edwards' recent endorsement of Barack Obama important? Forty-five percent of the voters in today's Kentucky's Democratic primary think so. But exit polls show they split their vote: 48 percent voted for Obama, and 47 percent for Clinton.

Fifty-two percent of today's voters in Kentucky say Edwards' endorsement of Obama was not important. They went overwhelmingly for Clinton: 81 to 14 percent.

(CNN) - In another sign of the challenge facing Obama among Democratic voters in blue-collar states like Kentucky, only 41 percent of them there said they would be satisfied if he wins the party's nomination.

Among Clinton supporters, the number is even more daunting for Obama: Only 33 percent said they'd be satisfied if the Illinois senator is the nominee.

That compares to 76 percent of Democrats in Kentucky who'd be satisfied if Clinton wins the nomination.

With less than six months until the general election, the Democratic Party has a lot of healing to do.

(CNN) - CNN has just predicted a wide margin of victory for Hillary Clinton in Kentucky. How did she win so overwhelmingly there?

The exit polls point to three reasons: Her support among white voters, her support among rural voters, and Barack Obama's controversial formal pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Among whites in Kentucky, who made up 9 in 10 voters, Clinton won 71 percent of the vote while Obama only won 22 percent.

Rural voters also voted overwhelmingly for Clinton. Those voters made up 45 percent of the electorate and nearly 80 percent of them went for Clinton. Among suburban voters, who made up 30 percent of the vote, Clinton won by a narrower 18 point margin. Meanwhile Obama carried urban voters by 18 points, but those voters only made up a little more than 10 percent of the electorate.

There is also evidence Obama's former pastor continues to haunt him. Nearly 55 percent of Democratic voters said Obama shares the most controversial views of Wright and those voters went for Clinton 84 percent to 9 percent over Obama. Among the 44 percent of Kentucky voters who said Obama does not share Wright's views, 51 percent voted for the Illinois senator while 43 percent went for Clinton.

(CNN) - Early exit polling from Kentucky shows the magnitude of Hillary Clinton’s victory there. Clinton won among men 62 to 32 percent. She won among women 67 to 27 percent.

She won in all age groups: 55 to 39 percent among voters between 17 and 29 years old; 61 to 35 percent among voters aged 30-44; 65 to 28 percent among voters 45-64 and 77 to 18 percent among voters 65 and older.

Clinton also won among all income groups: 67 to 28 percent among voters who make less than $50,000 a year and 63 to 31 percent among voters who make $50,000 a year or more.

Clinton won among people of all education levels: 74 to 21 percent among Kentucky Democratic voters who have no college education and 60 to 34 percent among college-educated voters.

Eighty-nine percent of today's voters in Kentucky are white. Among them, Clinton won 72 to 22 percent. Nine percent of today's voters in the state are African-American; they went overwhelmingly for Barack Obama, 87 to 7 percent.

(CNN) - Relatively few voters in Kentucky waited until the last minute to decide which Democratic presidential candidate to support. Early exit polls in Kentucky show 14 percent of today's voters decided in the last week - 85 percent had already made up their minds.

Click here to see county-by-county results from Kentucky.

Obama campaigned in Montana Monday while Clinton campaigned in Kentucky the day before the state's primary.

(CNN) - It's all about location, location, location.

Sen. Hillary Clinton will spend Tuesday night in Kentucky to celebrate what's expected to be a big win in that state's primary. But Sen. Barack Obama won't be in Oregon, even though he's favored to win that state's contest Tuesday.

The Illinois senator will appear at a rally in Iowa, where he kicked off the primary season with a January 3 caucus win - a victory that helped propel him to Democratic front-runner status.

Iowa is also a swing state - one President Bush won by just 10,000 votes in 2004, and one the Democrats would love to win this November.

Obama told reporters Sunday that visiting Iowa "was a terrific way to kind of bring things full circle."

Full story

Sen. Obama is favored in Oregon's Democratic primary.

(CNN) - At first glance, the expectations game in Tuesday's Democratic primaries could appear counterintuitive.

Kentucky has a much higher percentage of African-American residents (7.3 percent) than Oregon (2 percent), yet Sen. Hillary Clinton is favored to win big in Kentucky, and Sen. Barack Obama is the heavy favorite in Oregon.

Why?

Full story

Sen. Clinton at Maker's Mark Distillery in Loretto, Kentucky, Saturday.

LORETTO, Kentucky (CNN) - Wrapping up a rally at the Maker's Mark bourbon distillery on Saturday, Hillary Clinton again argued that she leads Barack Obama in the popular vote and attacked the television "punditry" that has suggested the race is over.

"All those people on TV who are telling you and everybody else that this race is over and I should just be graceful and say, 'Oh it's over' even though I've won more votes – those are all people who have a job," Clinton told supporters picnicking in the gardens of the distillery.

"Those are all people who have health care. Those are all people who can afford to send their kids to college. Those are all people who can pay whatever is charged at the gas pump. They're not the people I'm running to be a champion for."

"They keep telling me to quit," said Clinton. "I don't know, maybe I was just raised with the kind of values you were raised [with]. You don't quit on people and you don't quit until you finish what you started and you don't quit on America."

Clinton has recently been claiming a lead over Obama in the popular vote, a debatable claim, especially because the Democratic National Committee doesn't count the votes of Florida and Michigan, which Clinton does.

Both states were disqualified by the DNC for bringing forward their primaries.

CNN's official count - including all primaries and caucuses but neither Florida nor Michigan - has Obama ahead by close to 700,000 votes.

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