Mitch McConnell

A new poll shows Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell leading Democratic challenger Amy McGrath by 17 points in Kentucky’s U.S. Senate race this year.

The survey of 793 likely voters in Kentucky by Washington D.C. based firm Morning Consult shows McConnell leading McGrath 53% to 36%. The poll was conducted between July 24 and Aug 2.

McConnell is running for his seventh term in the Senate, though this is the first year he is running while also serving as the majority leader, the high-profile position that allows him to set the agenda of the chamber and wield influence on which bills come up for votes.

Kentucky’s Senior U.S. Senator, Republican Mitch McConnell, was in Kentucky Monday to talk about the $12 billion in CARES Act funding received by the state. McConnell’s first stop was at the Dare to Care food bank in Louisville, a nonprofit that received a Payroll Protection Program loan, where he spoke with reporters and greeted workers.

McConnell pointed to the food bank as one of the 47,000 small businesses in the state to receive a PPP loan, totaling $5.2 billion in federal funds.  At the first press conference, McConnell said he expects another federal relief package to get approval sometime in July, as the pandemic is “clearly not over”, he said. COVID-19 has been surging in states like Arizona, Texas and Florida. The senate majority leader said he thinks the next aid bill must address issues like healthcare, jobs, getting kids back in school and liability protection.

A growing number of leading Republicans are publicly embracing expert-recommended face masks as a means to slowing the spread of the deadly coronavirus, in the wake of more than 125,000 Americans killed by the virus.

In recent months, the topic of wearing masks has become politically divisive, despite official health guidance that they are one of the best defenses to restricting the spread of the deadly respiratory disease, COVID-19, from one person to another.

Progressives are mounting efforts to best establishment Democrats in Kentucky and New York Tuesday.

Black Lives Matter protests around the country have added energy to the left, and Black progressives are surging in contests in both states.

In Kentucky, the race between the two leading Democrats vying for the right to likely take on Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is coming down to the wire. All the momentum is on the side of state Rep. Charles Booker over Amy McGrath, a retired Marine fighter pilot with a lot of money and the party's backing.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he’ll only support sending more federal funds to state and local governments if the money is spent on responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and governors across the country have been pleading with Congress to prop up struggling state budgets during the pandemic amid a massive decline in income and sales tax revenues—taxpayers are making and spending less money.

Another Democrat has entered the race to challenge Senator Mitch McConnell for his seat in Congress.

Kentucky State Representative Charles Booker announced his Senate run on Sunday in Louisville. He was elected to his first term last year. In his speech he mentioned McConnell and gave a nod to the other Democratic challenger Amy McGrath, who’s raised a lot of money in the race.

 “Money doesn’t vote, people do; So sure [McConnell] has a lot of money, sure his big corporate buddies he sold out to will flood this campaign, but we have power in the people, and there’s a lot of people all over this country that know if we get rid of Mitch McConnell, we’re gonna be doing the whole world a solid,” Booker said. “Anybody that thinks you’re going to out-raise him is not being serious about beating him. This is not about how much money you spend. It’s about the work you put on the ground.”

Updated at 3:20 p.m. ET

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., dismissed the impeachment process against President Trump as a political proceeding rather than a judicial one.

"I'm not an impartial juror. This is a political process. There's not anything judicial about it," McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. "The House made a partisan political decision to impeach. I would anticipate we will have a largely partisan outcome in the Senate. I'm not impartial about this at all."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says that it appears Gov. Matt Bevin has lost his bid for reelection, even though Bevin still hasn’t conceded the race.

Bevin has requested a recanvass of the final tally that showed Beshear winning by more than 5,000 votes last Tuesday. A recanvass is a minimal double check of each county’s final election results and historically has only produced minor differences in the final count.

But on Monday, McConnell signaled that the race was over.

Kentucky state representative Charles Booker says he is exploring a run for U.S. Senate in 2020, potentially challenging Democrats Amy McGrath and Mike Broihier in the primary in hopes of taking on incumbent Republican Mitch McConnell next November. Booker announced the formation of his exploratory committee by video on Monday.

Booker, 35, is a liberal legislator and lawyer from Louisville who was elected to his first term last year. He serves on the Natural Resources and Energy, Judiciary, and Economic Development and Workforce Investment committees. Booker is a member of the Louisville Metropolitan and Kentucky Black Legislative caucuses.