Kentucky votes on which Democrat will take on Mitch McConnell

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Kentucky votes on which Democrat will take on Mitch McConnell

Democratic Senate candidate Amy McGrath is a former Marine fighter pilot and a fundraising phenomenon. But she enters primary day with an unexpected challenge for the party's nomination.

Long viewed as a shoo-in to progress to a showdown with Republican Senate Majority Mitch McConnell in November, McGrath has increasingly turned her attention to progressive primary rival Charles Booker, a Kentucky state representative gaining momentum -- and national attention -- in the aftermath of the police killings of George Floyd in Minnesota and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky. (Mike Broihier, a retired Marine advocating for universal basic income, is also running for the nomination.)

The state hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate since the reelection of Wendell Ford in 1992. It gave President Donald Trump a 30-point victory in 2016. Neither Democratic candidate would be favored to beat McConnell, the longest-serving Kentucky senator.

But McGrath's supporters believe that she would have a better shot. McGrath has raised over $40 million, an astonishing figure, and commands the support of the Senate Democratic campaign arm, a number of labor unions and others who are drawn to her background as a former fighter pilot who flew in combat for the Marines Corps. They note that her moderate views are more in alignment with Kentucky's traditional electorate than Booker, who supports the Green New Deal (he often refers to it as the "Kentucky New Deal"), universal basic income and "Medicare for All." McGrath in turn favors a public option and a Medicare buy-in for those over the age of 55, rather than overhauling the US health care system with a single-payer program.

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Date Posted: Tue, 23 Jun 2020, 07:16 pm

Tags: Politics,Kentucky,Mitch McConnell

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