Mitch McConnell announced Thursday he is not seeking another term next year. It’s funny around Kentucky and around Washington that this was ever treated as something but a foregone conclusion, given his health problems the last few years. McConnell, in less guarded moments, had all but said he would not run.
As for who is to succeed him, the field is already narrow.
No big-name Democrat, to the extent there are any left in this state, wants to enter. Democrat governor Andy Beshear is instead running for president, which is less of a long shot than trying to beat a Republican in Kentucky for a Senate seat.
Beshear and his cronies see his presidential run as a great lark. They will raise millions from national Democrats (money is one thing the Dems don’t lack) and make sure it goes into the coffers of favored friends and allies. Given the likely group of competitors, Sad Andy (he has an annoying sing-song speaking voice) may even find some traction in 2028, as a vacuous alternative to Gavin Newsom and other prominent lefties.
State rep. Pamela Stevenson of Louisville, who lost the attorney general's race badly last year, is the only Democrat so far willing to run.
The most powerful potential Republican, Congressman James Comer, has already passed on this race and may instead go for governor in 2027, when there is no incumbent.
But there are three other Republicans. Former attorney general Daniel Cameron has jumped in. Cameron, a protégé of Mitch McConnell, was expected to run for another term in 2023, then go for McConnell’s seat in 2026. Instead, he ran against Beshear for governor and wound up waging a poorly funded effort, hurt by Beshear’s waves of negative attacks.
The likely Republican favorite now, Congressman Andy Barr of Lexington, wasted no time blasting Cameron as a loser and setting the stage for his own expected announcement.
Politically, Barr is a solid, traditional conservative. Unlike Rand Paul or Tom Massie or Mitch McConnell, for that matter, Barr has virtually no political idiosyncrasies. He is more Tea Party than MAGA, but he has never had a problem with Mr. Trump or most factions of the GOP.
He started out as a young lawyer working for Gov. Ernie Fletcher. McConnell and Fletcher, once close allies, had a bitter falling out. Barr was very careful, though, never to cross Mitch during his career.
That may have put him in good stead. He is not so close to McConnell, like Cameron, that he turns off young activists. But he is a favorite with the establishment donors one needs to run a Senate campaign.
Also running is young tech millionaire Nate Morris. Morris has long been a MAGA critic of McConnell. He is very media-savvy and has been in the spotlight since high school. I wonder, though, how much of his own money he can put into the campaign. He will need a lot.
Who will the winner actually be? That’s easy. Whoever gets Donald Trump's endorsement. Right now, that has to be Andy Barr. Trump counts on his help in the House of Representatives. And the Senate Republican leaders will be lobbying Trump furiously to pick Barr, as he can easily raise the most money and won’t require their help with the general election, where they have more difficult seats to protect. Coming from Lexington, one of just two swing areas in the state, he should win the general election in a walk, just as he does his congressional races.
Frank Friday is an attorney in Louisville, Ky.
Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.