Amy McGrath Staked Her Political Career on Beating Mitch McConnell. But Will She Even Get a Chance?
The former fighter pilot was the favorite in Kentucky’s Democratic primary. But some feel her solidarity politics aren’t what we need now.
From the moment Amy McGrath launched her campaign last year to become Kentucky’s Democratic nominee for Senate, her pitch to voters has remained steady and simple: She is not Mitch McConnell. In a video announcing her candidacy, she points to McConnell, the six-term incumbent and uber-powerful Senate Majority Leader, as a man who has “turned Washington into something we all despise… a place where ideals go to die.” Hardly an interview passes where McGrath doesn’t call him out. “You can’t drain the swamp until you get rid of Mitch McConnell,” she told Politico. “A lot of people don’t like Mitch McConnell,” she said to the radio station WKU. “They just feel like he’s part of the problem. He’s part of the swamp.” Even when I spoke with McGrath a week before her state primary, she was talking about him. “I think the race, first of all, really is about Mitch McConnell and how bad he is for Kentucky,” she said. “So I try to make that case over and over again.”
