Democrats are fighting for the mantle of “most electable” in the Senate race in Kentucky, a state largely overlooked by the national party, despite some recent successes. A recent “target map” released by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee shows the national Democratic apparatus isn’t even aiming to break the GOP supermajority in either house of the state legislature. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is only targeting one seat in the state. In 2024, the Democratic National Committee sent over $2.5 million out to the state parties; the Kentucky Lantern reported that there was only a “five-figure” sum coming to the Bluegrass state.
This is despite the recent success of Andy Beshear, the popular two-term governor of the state, who probably could’ve cleared the field in the Senate race, had he chosen to run. Instead, it appears that Besear, a Democrat, may be angling for a 2028 presidential run.
Now, Democrats in Kentucky are jockeying for position as to who might successfully carve out the image as the most electable, a tacit acknowledgement of the fact that any Democrat will face a disadvantage in the general election, which will ultimately be a race to replace the outgoing Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
What little polling has been done in the Democratic primary suggests that, in Beshear’s absence, two familiar names dominate the field: former state Rep. Charles Booker and former fighter pilot Amy McGrath, both of whom have run in previous Senate elections in 2022 and 2020 respectively. Dale Romans, a thoroughbred racehorse trainer, has also made waves in the race since entering the primary in November, though no polling has been conducted that includes Romans.
Each of these candidates has a different claim to the electability argument. McGrath, in her 2020 bid, raised nearly $100 million in the race against McConnell, and now is running as a mainstream Democrat. Booker, in his 2022 race against Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., posted basically the same performance in the general election (both candidates received 38% support), but did so with less than a tenth of the funds that McGrath had. Romans, a political outsider, has pitched himself as an “independent Democrat,” drawing inspiration from former Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va., who was the last person to win West Virginia as a Democrat in his 2018 campaign.
So far this year, McGrath has spent considerable time re-litigating criticisms of her 2020 campaign. In an interview with Salon in October, she touted the field operation the money was able to pay for, while insisting that “No one got rich off my campaign.”
Booker, the most recent entry into the race, told Salon that he was aiming to build on his 2022 bid, which was focused on economic populism, and that moderates in the party are now coming around to his theory of how to win in red states.
Booker pointed to the endorsement of former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, a moderate Democrat, as evidence of this shift, with Patrick saying, “He’s exactly what Kentucky and what America needs in the United States Senate.”
“Charles Booker is one of the most exciting candidates on the national scene today: serious, proven, deeply connected to working people, and committed to government doing what it can to help everyone prosper,” Patrick said in his endorsement, first reported by Salon. “At a time when freedom is under assault, decency is out of fashion, opportunity is scarce, and regular people have no voice in the halls of power, Charles believes in and will work for an America that works for all Americans.”
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Booker’s agenda includes familiar staples of progressive campaigns, like support for Medicare for All and refusing corporate PAC and special interest donations. He has, however, proposed fresh ideas like his “40 for 40” proposal that would guarantee a minimum pay of $40,000 a year for a full-time 40-hour work week.
Booker is also critical of the increasingly fragile leadership of Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., saying “this is not about the breadth of his career, his service, but at this moment in time, the disconnects from regular people and what we need, and the type of fight we need to see in our leadership.”
In terms of his message on electability, Booker said that Democrats need to present an affirmative agenda, in other words, something for people to vote for.
“Some type of reform needs to be done on the amounts of money that it takes to run for office, and that goes for both parties.”
“If you’re saying that health care is a human right, you’ve got to mean it. If you’re saying housing is a human right, you’ve got to mean it. If we actually want people to be able to afford to do more than just struggle. That means we can’t use and take tax dollars past the pockets of billionaires and these major corporations,” Booker said. “That’s why turnout lags in a lot of ways. A lot of people don’t vote because they’re like, ‘What the hell is the point? No one cares about us.’”
Though he has yet to stake out positions on many policies, Romans has also alluded to memories of economic populism in the Democratic Party, namely in his announcement video, which featured Romans having a conversation with his mother at a kitchen table.
In the video, Romans’ mother, holding a photo of his father, said that he was a “big union man” and a fan of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Romans, in turn, said “that’s when the Democratic Party was for the working class,” before his mom says “that’s the way it should be.”
Romans’ pitch leans on his status as a political newcomer, a likely asset in a Republican state like Kentucky, his personal profile and the notion that electing a Democrat like Romans to the Senate would likely allow him to exercise outsized power in the Senate, akin to that wielded by Manchin. Romans has said Kentuckians can also count on him to buck his party on certain issues.
“I’ve been a lifelong Democrat, but I’m also more of a centrist person. An independent Democrat, to me, is someone running in a red state. If they get to Washington, they’re independent of the party. They’re not a puppet to the president like any Republican freshman senator would have to be, and you can vote strictly on the issues of what’s best for Kentucky and best for the United States,” Romans told Salon in an interview.
Romans would, however, be a vote in support of some key Democratic priorities, like restoring funding for Medicare and Medicaid, empowering organized labor, raising the cap on Social Security taxes and strengthening the Affordable Care Act.
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He’s also supportive of limiting money in politics, though he said in his current bid that he would be accepting donations from anyone who wanted to donate to him, while maintaining that “I can’t be bought.”
“Some type of reform needs to be done on the amounts of money that it takes to run for office, and that goes for both parties, and how much the party can pick the candidate that they want to run, and they’ll get behind, and they can put money into the campaigns,” Romans said. “I think that keeps a lot of good people from running and there needs to be some kind of campaign reform on how much money is dumped into it.”
Romans also entered the race with the blessing, but not yet the endorsement, of Beshear, who passed over a Senate bid of his own, and Manchin, whom Romans consulted with ahead of his announcement.
“I think the thing about Manchin that I like so much is that he went up there and he did what he thought was right all the time, voted with his conscience, and didn’t bow to the pressure of anyone. And I thought that was a good thing,” Romans said, but added, “I don’t know how much our policies line up.”
What is certain for any of these candidates is that they will be facing a hard fight in the general election next year. The race is not considered a likely pickup opportunity for Democrats in the Senate, and thus the race is likely to be a lower priority when compared to races happening in states like New Hampshire, Maine or even Alaska. What it could be, however, is a proving ground for Democrats hoping to make inroads in and test strategies in red states.
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