Kentucky Democrat Amy McGrath Launches Bid to Unseat Mitch McConnell

Amy McGrath address supporters after her loss during her Election Night Event at the EKU C
Jason Davis/Getty Images
Hannah Knudsen

Kentucky Democrat Amy McGrath is launching a bid to unseat Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), she announced Tuesday.

“I’m running to replace Mitch McConnell in the U.S. Senate,” the Marine veteran wrote in a tweet accompanied by a three-minute campaign video. “Everything that’s wrong with Washington had to start somewhere—it started with him.”

She said McConnell was “elected a lifetime ago” and argued the need for a change, saying:

The challenge of today is inside each of us. How do we reconcile our belief in basic human decency with our anger at this who block progress at all costs? There is a path to resetting our countries moral compass, where each of us is heard and we can become once again the moral and economic leader of a world in disarray.

She is already seeing support from celebrities such as left-wing comedian Chelsea Handler.

“Let’s donate and elect people who will take money out of politics, so assholes like Mitch McConnell aren’t making decisions based on donations from the NRA,” Handler tweeted following McGrath’s announcement:

McGrath faces an uphill battle, as McConnell has been a key ally in assisting President Trump to implement his MAGA promises, particularly in the realm of the Supreme Court. Notably, Trump has seen strong support in Kentucky, winning the state in the 2016 general election by nearly 30 percentage points.

This would not be McGrath’s first political effort. She ran against Trump-backed incumbent Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) last year but lost by 3.2 percentage points.

McConnell’s team welcomed McGrath to the race Tuesday morning, releasing a video highlighting her extreme positions, such as support for universal health care and abortion.

During a “Meet the Candidates Series” event in November 2017, McGrath described Trump’s 2016 victory as a “sucker punch” and compared it to what she felt after 9/11.

“And that morning I woke up like somebody had sucker punched me. I mean, I felt like, ‘what has just happened to my country?’” she said.

“The only feeling I can describe that’s any close to it was the feeling I had after 9/11,” she continued. “‘What just happened, where are we going from here?’ And it was that just sinking feeling of sadness, and I didn’t know what to do.”

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