LEXINGTON, Ky. — U.S. Rep. Andy Barr and former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron are navigating a balancing act in the final days before Tuesday’s Kentucky Republican Senate primary, maintaining carefully managed distance from retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell while still acknowledging the 84-year-old’s deep imprint on the state.
McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in history, broke sharply with Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and later opposed several Trump cabinet picks, including Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health secretary, and Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. Those breaks have turned McConnell into a complication for any Republican seeking statewide office in an era defined by Trump’s Make America Great Again movement.
Cameron, who once served as McConnell’s legal counsel, tested that dissatisfaction directly in a video launching his campaign, calling the senator “flat out wrong” for opposing the three nominees. But in a more reflective moment after a Lincoln Day Dinner in Covington, he acknowledged the delicacy.
“If you talk to people, they acknowledge this is a change election and are ready for someone else to serve in that seat,” Cameron said, “but they also don’t want you to kick a man when he’s on the way out. Call it the kindness or courteous nature of Kentuckians.”
Barr, who interned for McConnell early in his career, has similarly distanced himself. At a recent event at a public library, he was asked whether he was a Mitch McConnell Republican or a Rand Paul Republican.
“I am neither, I am an Andy Barr Republican,” he told the crowd.
The balancing act is made more precarious by Trump’s endorsement of Barr at the beginning of May. A campaign consultant for Cameron quickly shot back, “Congrats to Mitch McConnell for getting his guy,” framing Barr as McConnell’s preferred candidate.
The dynamics displaced a third candidate, businessman Nate Morris, who ran an ad showing a cardboard cutout of McConnell in the trash and labeled Barr and Cameron “McConnell’s boys.” The approach failed to gain traction with voters. Landon Shaw, a 21-year-old Shawnee State University student, criticized the ad: “He’s talking about how much he opposes McConnell,” Shaw told the Associated Press, “he’s not talking about himself.” Morris ultimately dropped out of the race after Trump offered him an unspecified ambassadorship, despite $10 million in financial backing from Elon Musk.
Many Kentucky Republicans, even those who credit McConnell’s office with delivering more than $65 billion in federal spending to the state, appear ready for a change. Tony Quillen, the property valuation administrator in Greenup County, said, “He did a great service for the United States, for Kentucky, but times are changing and we need to finally move on and thank him for his service.”
Stephen Voss, a political scientist at the University of Kentucky, said the candidates are navigating a “razor’s edge” between an establishment still loyal to McConnell and voters’ unhappiness with old-school Reagan-Bush era Republicans. Yet he said McConnell’s team understands the realities.
“McConnell’s people are realistic enough to understand that the candidates need to distance themselves from McConnell,” Voss told the Associated Press, “but that’s different than openly disrespecting or attacking him.”