Democratic Kentucky state Rep. Pamela Stevenson announced a bid to fill outgoing Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) seat ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Stevenson declared her candidacy on Monday, marking a long-shot bid to become the state’s first Democratic senator since 1999.
“For 40 years, Mitch McConnell watched Kentucky from 30,000 feet,” she said in a campaign video that alluded to the incumbent senator’s time in Washington since first clinching the seat in 1985. “I cannot believe he ever looked our people in the eye, wielded all that power, and retired without making more of a difference in their lives.”
A retired Air Force colonel who now serves as the Kentucky House’s minority leader, Stevenson ran to become the state’s attorney general in 2023. She lost that race to Republican candidate Russell Coleman, who won 58% of the vote.
Stevenson faces a daunting campaign as Kentucky historically favors GOP candidates. While the state’s governor and lieutenant governor are Democrats, Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature. At the national level, Kentucky’s two senators are Republicans, and five of the state’s six representatives are members of the GOP, with just one Democrat. McConnell, who announced in February he would not seek reelection, won his last Senate campaign in 2020 by nearly 20 percentage points.
Former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron has emerged as the most notable Republican to launch a bid to replace McConnell.
However, Cameron has a target on his back from the Trump administration due to his closeness with McConnell, introducing another element of tension to the closely watched Senate race. Donald Trump’s allies have long criticized the incumbent senator for bucking some of the president’s priorities. Now, the president’s son is among those attacking Cameron for being “literally Mitch’s protégé.”
“We can not replace Mitch McConnell in the US Senate with someone who is entirely controlled by Mitch McConnell,” Donald Trump Jr. posted on X.
Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) and businessman Nate Morris, who holds close ties to the Trump administration, are also considering Senate runs.
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Donald Trump Jr. praised Morris earlier this month when he hosted the Kentucky businessman on his podcast, Triggered.
“You actually have a story that’s really similar to another guy that we pushed into a Senate seat and turned into a rock star for the base and for the Republican Party … It sounds a lot like [Vice President] JD Vance,” Trump Jr. told Morris in reference to Vance, who served as an Ohio senator before ascending to the No. 2 role in Washington.