It’s official: Democrat Charles Booker is running for Rand Paul’s U.S. Senate seat
Former state Rep. Charles Booker is running for the U.S. Senate in hopes of ousting Republican incumbent Rand Paul.
The campaign posted a video on Twitter and issued a media advisory early Thursday morning, and the full announcement came early after noon Thursday at the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage in west Louisville, where Booker grew up.
Booker hopes to unseat Paul of Bowling Green, an ophthalmologist who has held the seat since 2011. Paul has said Booker is too liberal for Kentucky, claiming that Kentuckians won’t accept his views on defunding police and making reparations for slavery.
Booker, with his family on stage with him, asked an energetic crowd of several hundred in a 25-minute speech in Louisville, “Are you ready to stand with me? Do you believe we can stand together? I know we can.”
Booker mentioned Paul by name several times, saying that Paul cares more for power and money than he does for Kentuckians.
His audience included several state legislators and union leaders.
The tweet announcement began with Booker talking to a crowd about freedom — a tie to the campaign’s launch on July 4th weekend — saying that he’s always understood that he had to struggle to achieve freedom while politicians exploited their power.
“It’s with that understanding that we have to lead ourselves that I’m going to run for United States Senate,” Booker says. “We’re gonna make it ring because Kentucky deserves it. I believe we’re ready for this moment.”
Booker is considered the front-runner in next spring’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, but would face an uphill battle in a potential general election against Paul in a state that went for former President Donald Trump by 26 percentage points in 2020.
Booker’s entry into the race has felt inevitable since his 2020 campaign fell short in the primary after a late surge of momentum. He has teased at his potential U.S. Senate bid for months, first indicating his potential candidacy on KET in March, then forming an exploratory committee in April, before officially announcing his candidacy Thursday.
It is unclear how much money the campaign’s stutter-steps have brought in, as his exploratory committee has not had to publicly disclose its receipts. In May, the exploratory committee announced that it had raised $500,000 in its first month and Booker has around $90,000 left over from his first Senate campaign in a separate account called Booker for the People. The account has not had to file a report since April, so it is unclear whether the money is already part of the $500,000 Booker raised.
Paul has already raised $5.1 million for his campaign and has $3.1 million in cash on hand.
Booker came on strong last year in the Democratic primary election for U.S. Senate against former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath, but lost. He captured 42.7 percent of the vote to 45.4 percent for McGrath, who then lost to Republican incumbent Mitch McConnell in the general election by nearly 20 percentage points.
He’s attempting to sell a populist, progressive message to a state that has been overwhelmingly sending conservative politicians to Washington D.C. over the past few years.
“After getting trounced during the 2020 elections, Kentucky Democrats are taking a radically different approach to the 2022 Senate race with Charles Booker,” said Katharine Cooksey, press secretary for the National Republican Senatatorial Committee. “Charles Booker, Bernie Sanders and their socialist allies are no match for conservative Senator Rand Paul.”
Booker was a member of the state House of Representatives from 2019 to 2021, served as recruitment chair for the Democratic State Central Committee and worked in the Department of Fish and Wildlife under former Gov. Steve Beshear.
He has formed an advocacy group called “From the Hood to the Holler” and is working on a memoir.
Ruth Gao of Louisville announced Wednesday by social media that she is running in the 2022 Democratic primary election election in hopes of becoming the first millennial woman in the U.S. Senate.
This story was originally published July 1, 2021 at 8:47 AM.
