Mitch McConnell has held his Kentucky Senate seat since 1985. This fall, for the first time in four decades, his name will not be on the ballot. McConnell is retiring. The seat is open. And on Tuesday, Democrats in Kentucky will choose who they want to run for it.
The primary is May 19. The leading candidate is Charles Booker, and his story is unlike almost anyone else running for Senate this cycle.
Who Charles Booker Is
Booker grew up in Louisville’s West End, one of the poorest zip codes in Kentucky. He has talked openly about watching his mother skip meals so he could eat, about being homeless, about rationing insulin because he could not afford his medication as a Type 1 diabetic. He went on to serve in the Kentucky state legislature, founded a grassroots organization called Hood to the Holler, and has now run for Senate three times.
He lost the 2020 Democratic primary to Amy McGrath by a narrow margin. He lost to Rand Paul in 2022 in the general. He is back for a third run, this time for the open seat, and he is leading the Democratic primary by 18 points over McGrath, who is running again. An Emerson College poll in April had him at 36 percent, McGrath at 18, with 38 percent still undecided.
Why the Race Matters
Kentucky has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1992. McConnell’s retirement does not make it a swing state. But the national political environment has shifted significantly in the past year. Democrats have outperformed their 2024 baseline by an average of 13 points in special elections since Trump returned to office. A district that was R+17 a year ago went Democratic in a special election by 15 points.
The political math that made Kentucky an automatic Republican pickup looks different than it did even six months ago. Booker is not running as a cautious centrist hoping to chip away at Republican margins. He is running on a platform of Medicare for All, a $45,000 minimum annual wage for full-time workers, affordable housing, and universal childcare. His argument is that working-class Kentuckians and Democrats want the same things, that the party has just spent too long failing to show up and make the case.
Whether that argument can win in Kentucky in November is an open question. What is not an open question is that the environment for Democrats running against Republican incumbents and open Republican seats is more favorable right now than it has been in years.
The Republican Side
On the Republican side, the primary features a crowded field: former Rep. Andy Barr, former Attorney General Daniel Cameron, and businessman Nate Morris are the leading contenders, along with several others. No candidate has broken away cleanly. The primary winner will be the favorite in November in a state Trump carried by more than 30 points in 2024.
But favorites have been underperforming their margins all cycle.
What Tuesday Shows
Tuesday’s primary results will tell Democrats something important. If Booker wins convincingly on the strength of his grassroots organization, it signals that the infrastructure he has spent years building — the Hood to the Holler network, the rural-urban coalition, the effort to reach voters Democrats have written off — can actually deliver turnout in a primary. That is the first test any general election campaign has to pass.
It will not make Kentucky competitive overnight. But in a cycle where Democrats are running 13 points ahead of where they were a year ago, even a Senate race in Kentucky is worth taking seriously.
Tuesday is where it starts.