A new Public Policy Polling survey in Kentucky finds Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) with a lowly 37% to 55% approval rating, the worst favorable/unfavorable numbers of any senator the country.

Nonetheless, he leads all of the Democrats tested against him in a 2014 race: Lt. Gov. Jerry Abramson (D), Attorney General Jack Conway (D), and actress Ashley Judd all trail McConnell by four points, 47% to 43%.

“The reason McConnell does decently well in the head to head match ups despite his poor approval numbers is that even though a lot of Republicans dislike him, most of them would still vote for him in a general election before they would support a Democrat.”

Nate Silver sees Hillary Clinton’s high favorability numbers falling if she moves to run for president in 2016 because Republicans “would begin to criticize her, delicately at first, and then more expressly as the election drew nearer.”

“None of this is to argue that Mrs. Clinton would not have some unique strengths as a candidate. For all the reasons I mentioned at the top, she seems like Democrats’ best bet, perhaps by some margin, to extend their winning streak to three or more terms in the White House. If she ran even a point or two stronger than a ‘generic’ Democrat, the odds would shift meaningfully in her favor, holding other circumstances equal.”

“Perhaps Mrs. Clinton’s most impressive attribute is her ability to withstand criticism — and often emerge the stronger from it. If she runs for president again, she will surely receive plenty of it.”

The Week: Why Republicans are really scared of Hillary Clinton.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) has whittled down the list of people she is considering for Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-SC) soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat to five people, CNN reports.

Her final choices: Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC), Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), former state Attorney General Henry McMaster (R), former South Carolina First Lady Jenny Sanford (R) and attorney Catherine Templeton (R).

“One thing they have in common: a warm personal relationship with the governor, who is known to prize loyalty.”

A new Public Policy Polling survey in South Carolina finds Gov. Nikki Haley (R) running behind her 2010 opponent Vincent Sheheen (D) in a possible rematch, 46% to 44%.

The good news for Haley is that she does not look terribly vulnerable to a primary challenger with Republicans wanting her as their nominee, 53% to 37%.

New York Daily News: “Bill de Blasio says he’s proud of his marriage — and his wife’s outspoken lesbian past.”

Gerald Seib: “Based on nearly complete results, of the 234 Republicans elected to the House, just 15 come from districts that the Democratic president carried… Of 201 Democrats elected, just nine come from districts Republican Mitt Romney carried… Not only are House members coming from reliably partisan districts, many are winning in landslides. In this fall’s election, 125 House members — 42 Republicans and 83 Democrats — won their districts with 70% or more of the vote…”

“The situation is similar in the Senate. There will be 45 Republican senators in the new Congress. Only 10 of them come from states President Obama won. There will be 55 Democrats and independents who caucus with Democrats. Just 11 of them come from states Mr. Romney won…”

“Voting in that presidential race, meanwhile, was starkly partisan. President Obama won the votes of just 6% of Republicans, exit polls indicate. Mr. Romney won just 7% of Democrats.”

New York Times: “Of the 234 House Republicans who will sit in the 113th Congress, 85
percent won re-election with 55 percent of the vote; more than half of
next year’s House Republican Conference won more than 60 percent. And
virtually every one of them ran on holding the line against tax
increases and the Obama agenda.”

A new Quinnipiac poll in Ohio finds Gov. John Kasich (R) has a 42% to 35% job approval rating — his first positive rating since he took office — but voters still say he does not deserve a second term by a 44% to 37% margin.

Dan Froomkin: “Post-mortems of contemporary election coverage typically include regrets about horserace journalism, he-said-she-said stenography, and the lack of enlightening stories about the issues.”

“But according to longtime political observers Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, campaign coverage in 2012 was a particularly calamitous failure, almost entirely missing the single biggest story of the race: Namely, the radical right-wing, off-the-rails lurch of the Republican Party, both in terms of its agenda and its relationship to the truth.”