It’s an uphill battle for any Democrat seeking to take over the seat that Sen. Mitch McConnell has held onto since 1985, when he won the office from a Democratic incumbent. A Democrat has not represented Kentucky in the U.S. Senate since Wendell Ford left office in 1999.
And all of the candidates say if there was ever a time for Democrats to win over the U.S. Senate, it’s now. McConnell is not seeking reelection. President Donald Trump’s approval rating is underwater across the country — in Kentucky, where he won by a more than 30 point margin in 2024, Trump is now hovering at about a 51% approval rating, according to data journalist G. Elliott Morris.
It’s a crowded primary, but two familiar faces have dominated the limited polling in the race: former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath, who lost to McConnell by almost 20 percentage points in 2020, and former state Rep. Charles Booker, who lost to incumbent Sen. Rand Paul in 2022 by a 23-point margin.
Louisville horse trainer and political newcomer Dale Romans is also making a bid for the seat, as is State Rep. Pamela Stevenson, a retired Air Force colonel.
Democratic operatives in the state have said that Gov. Andy Beshear’s successful gubernatorial bid in 2023 is the modern ceiling for what a Democrat can accomplish in the state, when he won by a 5 percentage point margin. But that was in an off election year, with no federal races on the ballot. And the governor, who has found broad support even among Republican Kentuckians, decided not to run for Senate, and instead hinted heavily at a possible presidential run in 2028.
Some Democrats told Kentucky Public Radio they were a bit disappointed by that decision, and that this primary wouldn’t have been the same if Beshear had decided to enter it. At a Democratic forum in Oldham County in late April, Jeff Arth said he was disappointed that Beshear decided not to run.
“I think he would have been an excellent senator. I wish he would have ran,” Arth said. “I think it's gonna be harder for him to get on the national stage, because Kentucky is a small state.”
But the fact that Beshear isn’t on the ballot and has not endorsed anyone hasn’t stopped his name from coming up in the primary.
“We need to take back the Senate. We need to put this president in a box. We're never going to get him impeached, never going to get 60 votes in the Senate,” Romans said at the forum. “So we have to be pragmatic about that, but we can box him in for the next two years until we get Andy Beshear in the White House.”
Another Kentucky Democratic voter, Christia Luckey, told Kentucky Public Radio she wants a candidate that doesn’t just “create a facade for what you think voters want,” but someone genuine about their position. And importantly, she wants a candidate who can win against the Republican nominee.
“Almost like a chess match, because you can like all of them, but based on who is running on the other side, what makes sense?” Luckey said. “And that's the piece that I still need to work out.”
The Republican primary is now largely down to a couple of major candidates, after Lexington businessman Nate Morris dropped out of the race after receiving an unnamed ambassadorship from the president. The GOP primary for the U.S. Senate is now dominated by Trump-endorsed U.S. Rep. Andy Barr and former Attorney General Daniel Cameron.
With Primary Election Day in Kentucky just a week out and early no-excuse voting starting Thursday, here’s what you need to know about the top Democratic candidates running for U.S. Senate.
Charles Booker
Booker, who most recently served as the head of Beshear’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, has run for U.S. Senate twice before he threw in his hat for McConnell’s open seat. He lost in the 2020 primary to McGrath and then lost in the 2022 general election to Paul.
But Booker, a former state representative known for his fiery floor speeches, has once again been touring the state and says this is the year to flip the now open Senate seat blue.
“We have pulled people into the coalition that voted for Trump, that voted for Bernie Sanders, that have never voted before,” Booker said. “We have done something that Kentucky has been demanding for years, and we listened to them.”
Booker, endorsed by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth’s PAC and Former U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, champions progressive causes like Medicare for All, universal income, free public university tuition and federal renter protections.
“I've been able to build such a powerful coalition across Kentucky of regular folks who don't trust politicians, just like I don't, but know that things won't change unless we do it,” Booker said. “Ultimately, by building community, by leaning in and building infrastructure, just like Mitch McConnell did, we can have a base of people that can go to Washington and demand the change we need as well.”
His nonprofit Hood to the Holler, which sought to inform and register voters and organize Kentuckians around a progressive agenda, has been inactive since the end of 2024; Booker said he stepped down from a leadership role in the nonprofit when he joined the Beshear administration in 2023. Since losing to Paul in 2022, Booker said he’s been busy building coalitions and making connections with Kentuckians across the political spectrum.
“I'm taking notes from Mitch McConnell and some notes from Donald Trump,” Booker said. “Donald Trump ran on draining the swamp. He ran on addressing the needs people face, ending endless war. He led with a bold vision. He just hasn't delivered on it, because, of course, he was B-S-ing.”
Booker said that it’s not enough to solely campaign against Trump and his agenda, and that he’s also paid attention to how Trump ran his campaign. He said he too would want to “drain the swamp,” borrowing a phrase frequently used by Trump to refer to a plan to remove entrenched government bureaucrats and reduce alleged waste and fraud.
“Trump said he was going to stop it, and he's really just profiting off of it,” Booker said.
Booker has raised $508,000, according to the most recent April Federal Election Commission filings, for this campaign. In one of his previous campaign committees, Booker’s campaign still owes significant debt — almost $90,000 — that has budged little since he lost the 2022 race.
According to an April Emerson College poll of likely Democratic primary voters, Booker had a commanding 18 percentage-point lead over McGrath, the next leading candidate, although 38% of polled Kentuckians were undecided at the time.
Amy McGrath
McGrath has plenty of name recognition to work off of six years after her $90 million failed Senate bid that flooded Kentucky airwaves with advertising. Now, she’s back for another chance to get to the U.S. Senate. Leveraging her military credentials, McGrath said Kentuckians need someone uniquely qualified to understand pressing national security concerns because of Trump’s war in Iran.
“We need somebody who understands the global security crisis that we now face,” McGrath said at an April forum. “This has been my life defending this country, and I look forward to doing that in the United States Senate, to check an unhinged president.”
McGrath is a former fighter pilot and the first woman to fly a combat mission in the Marine Corp. Her first entry into the political arena was an unsuccessful run in 2018 to unseat U.S. Rep. Andy Barr in his Lexington-area district; Barr is now the favorite to win the Republican nomination for McConnell’s Senate seat after receiving Trump’s endorsement. McGrath said she continued working behind the scenes in politics after losing her 2020 bid for the Senate, supporting candidates in Georgia and other the country in tough elections.
When she ran for Senate in 2020, McGrath ran ads that promoted voters who planned to vote for both her and Trump. She says now many Kentuckians feel Trump did not live up to his promises.
“Did you vote for higher taxes in the form of tariffs? No, that's not what they voted for. Did you vote for another war in the Middle East? No, that's not what they voted for. Did you vote for 35 of our rural hospitals to be at risk right now because of these cuts last summer?” she said.
McGrath said rising gas prices because of Trump’s war in Iran have become the main topic of conversation for the Kentucky voters she’s spoken with. She said unless Democrats flip Congress, she fears the U.S. will either enter into an unfavorable agreement with Iran or begin a ground operation. Trump said this week that the current ceasefire with Iran is on “major life support.”
“We need a new Congress that will force this Trump administration into full transparency as to how much we've already lost here in terms of munitions, in terms of our bases and all of that stuff,” McGrath said. “[We need to] force an agreement that ends this energy crisis, okay, and gets our military back into the business of actually defending our country.”
McGrath self-identifies as a “commonsense Kentucky Democrat,” comparing her politics to Beshear’s.
“He has shown us a road map for Democrats to win in a place like Kentucky, and that means you have to, one, talk about the issues that matter to people, and two, be a candidate that cannot only speak to and listen and hear Democrats, but also moderates and independents,” McGrath said. “That's the path to victory.”
She said the first bill she would file should she win would strip congressmen of their pay as long as the government is fully or partially shut down. McGrath has raised more than $2 million as of the most recent FEC filing.
Dale Romans & Pamela Stevenson
Both Romans and Stevenson are polling in single digits, but are continuing to campaign hard in the final week of the race.
Romans, despite showing little progress in the polls, has raised significant capital for the primary. He has raised $832,000, including nearly a quarter of a million dollars that he loaned himself, according to the most recent FEC filings.
Romans, a horse trainer whose earned career winnings amounting to $127.6 million, has billed himself as a moderate Democrat who wants to get things done in Congress. In an interview with KPR after joining the race, Romans said the country’s “broken” immigration system was one of the top reasons he decided to enter the race as a relative political newcomer.
“We have a broken system that needs to be fixed and overhauled, but until we do that, let's get these people documented,” Romans said. “Let's get them paying taxes. Let's find out where they are. Let's separate them from the bad, and they're productive Americans.”
Romans has described his two political role models as former West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and current Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. Romans said in his experience lobbying for the horseracing industry, he learned to work together with people across the aisle.
“I don't talk political rhetoric. I want to talk about what is pragmatic, and go up there and do pragmatic work,” Romans said at an April forum. “I'm tired of the fighting all the time, back and forth. My door will be open to any Republican who wants to come and work. I'll work with them.”
State Rep. Pamela Stevenson, a retired Air Force colonel, was the first Democratic candidate to enter the Senate race, announcing her candidacy shortly after McConnell announced his retirement. While Stevenson has not previously run for federal office, she did unsuccessfully run Kentucky Attorney General in 2023, losing by an 18-point margin.
As minority floor leader in the Kentucky House, Stevenson is known for her passionate floor speeches. She said she is running to protect the “promise of America.”
“We must defend the freedoms that we have. America is no experiment. It works when we work and when we don't engage, we get what we got,” Stevenson said. “So I'm running because that promise is being shredded all across this country.”
As of Wednesday, Stevenson had not filed the last three legally mandated campaign finance reports. When reached for comment, Stevenson’s campaign blamed “processing delays” and said they are working to submit their reports. Their last report was filed in September last year, providing no picture of the financial backing for Stevenson’s campaign in the final stretch of the primary.
