Here’s who we know is running for KY’s US Senate seat in 2026, and who may be running
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Mitch McConnell won’t run again in 2026
Longtime Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell will not seek reelection next year, he announced Thursday, ending a decades-long run as one of the most powerful Republicans in the country. McConnell, first elected in 1984, is the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history.
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The race to become Kentucky’s next U.S. Senator has begun.
Sen. Mitch McConnell announced in February he was not seeking an eighth term in office, clearing the way for Kentucky to have its first open U.S. Senate seat race since 2010.
First elected in 1984, McConnell went on to become the longest-serving Senate party leader in history, a position he stepped away from earlier this year. McConnell said he intends to serve out the remainder of his term, which ends in early 2027.
The early consensus was that heated competition would concentrate on the GOP side, given Kentucky hasn’t had a Democrat in the U.S. Senate since Wendell Ford retired in 1999. However, a number of Democrats running legitimate campaigns have thrown their hats in the ring.
So who is lining up to replace the 83-year-old Senator?
Running: Republican Daniel Cameron
Daniel Cameron is a former one-term Kentucky attorney general and 2023 Republican nominee for governor after emerging on top in a 12-way primary. Cameron is the first Black person to be independently elected to statewide office in Kentucky, and the first Black major-party nominee for Kentucky governor.
Incumbent Democrat Andy Beshear ultimately won the governor’s race over Donald Trump-endorsed Cameron by five percentage points.
Cameron, 39, announced his decision to run mere minutes after McConnell’s announcement.
After leaving the attorney general’s office, Cameron went on to be CEO of the 1792 Exchange, a group dedicated to fighting “woke” capitalism and preserving “freedom by partnering with allies to steer public companies back to neutral on divisive, ideological issues.” He was also recently hired in a consulting capacity by a law firm specializing in federal issues.
As attorney general, Cameron’s office faced national scrutiny for its handling of the investigation into the 2020 fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor in Louisville.
McConnell and Cameron have strong ties; Cameron worked as McConnell’s legal counsel before his election to statewide office. He started his political career as an intern in McConnell’s office while he played for the University of Louisville’s football team.
Cameron is a 2011 graduate of the University of Louisville’s law school.
Running: Democrat Pamela Stevenson
Kentucky House Democratic Floor Leader Pamela Stevenson, a Louisville Democrat, has filed to raise money for a 2026 U.S. Senate run.
“It is time KY has new leadership in DC that is dedicated to serving them. I fully intend to seek the office & will make my formal announcement in a few weeks,” Stevenson posted on social media Thursday.
Stevenson was elected by her Democratic peers in the state House to become the first Black woman to lead a legislative caucus in Kentucky history.
In 2023, she was the Democratic nominee for attorney general, running against Republican Russell Coleman. She lost to Coleman by 16 percentage points.
Stevenson is an attorney by trade, an ordained minister and retired from the U.S. Air Force, where she served as a judge advocate general, or JAG, with the rank of colonel.
She became widely known in Kentucky and the country over the past few legislative sessions for her fiery floor speeches denouncing Republican legislation. Many of them went viral on video-based social media platforms such as TikTok.
She was elected to the state House in 2020.
Running: Republican Andy Barr
Andy Barr is a Republican representing Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was first elected to that role in 2012.
After weeks of speculation, Barr launched his campaign for McConnell’s seat in mid-April. His campaign video and speech at his launch event leaned heavily into his support for Trump.
“The United States is the greatest country on earth, and it’s not even close,” Barr said in the video. “But here’s the problem: The woke left wants to neuter America, literally. They hate our values, they hate our history, and goodness knows, they hate President Trump.”
Barr lost out on the House Financial Services Committee chairmanship to Arkansas Rep. French Hill in December, but he is the chair of the Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy subcommittee.
He enters the Senate race in a strong financial position; after raising more than $2 million in the first quarter of 2025, he ended March with more than $5.3 million in his transferable campaign account.
Though Barr is viewed as a mainstream Republican, he’s made a point of showcasing his loyalty to Trump in recent months, serving as his state chairman in 2024 and echoing the president’s call for the release of those charged with crimes for attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Though he, too, has ties with McConnell — he called him his “mentor” in a mid-2024 interview — Barr was a critic in the weeks leading up to his launch.
A recent mass text sent to some Republicans in Kentucky read “MUST-SEE > Rep. Andy Barr SLAMS McConnell for selling America out to China.” The source of the text was not immediately apparent. It linked to an interview Barr recently did with popular conservative commentator Benny Johnson.
Running: Democrat Logan Forsythe
Logan Forsythe, an attorney and former U.S. Secret Service agent, launched his campaign for U.S. Senate mid-September.
Forsythe has emphasized his personal story early in his campaign, stressing his service protecting presidents on both sides of the aisle, as well as the struggles his family endured early in his life.
He was raised by a single mother in poverty in Lyon County, a rural community in Western Kentucky.
“I was on Medicaid. I was on food stamps from the time I was growing up. I relied on those things,” Forsythe said.
Much of his campaign is focused on protecting programs like Medicaid, which have faced cuts during Trump’s second term. He’s prioritizing meat-and-potatoes Democratic issues like education, healthcare and affordability.
“The current people running to support the current administration — they want to do away with all these programs,” he said. “So while the math might be daunting, and it might seem discouraging, I think that when people get to know me, get to know this campaign, see what I’m fighting for, and hear my story ... I think that message will resonate, and we’ll see what the numbers look like at the end of this.”
Forsythe’s firm, Morgan, Collins, Yeast & Salyer, is politically connected. It recently made a $25,000 donation to Gov. Andy Beshear’s personal political action committee, In This Together.
One area where Forsythe differs from his Democratic peers is foreign policy. He called himself a “Kentucky and America first kind of person,” leery of large sums of foreign aid. That includes aid to U.S. allies like Israel and Ukraine.
“I don’t think we should be allocating billions of dollars to any foreign country when states like Kentucky, or any state, has larger needs here at home. So, I’m a Kentucky and America first kind of person in terms of our spending. Also, I can’t support any government, any organization, anybody that does commit some of the acts that Israel has committed. And I would never stand up and try to defend how they have treated Palestinians, not just here recently, but for many, many years,” Forsythe said.
Running: Republican Nate Morris
Nate Morris is a Lexington entrepreneur who founded the waste-focused software company Rubicon in 2009.
The entrepreneur has attempted to carve out a lane as the most anti-McConnell and pro-Trump of the crop of candidates. He has offered sharp criticism of McConnell’s foreign policy stance and votes against Trump appointees.
Morris ended a television advertisement with the line: “I’m a Trump guy, not a McConnell boy,” in a jab at Barr and Cameron.
Morris has ties to Vice President JD Vance and has already caught the attention of Donald Trump Jr. on social media, who told any 2026 contender who wanted his endorsement that they’d need to break with McConnell as Morris did.
During his launch, Morris shared the stage with the late conservative influencer and activist Charlie Kirk. Morris was the last candidate Kirk endorsed before he was assassinated in September.
According to his website, Morris was the first Kentuckian to be named to Fortune Magazine’s 40 Under 40 list and is the youngest inductee ever to the Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame.
Morris’ wealth is likely significant — In 2022 alone, he made $41 million as Rubicon CEO according to industry news outlet Waste Dive. Also in 2022, Rubicon went public on the New York Stock Exchange in a $1.7 billion deal.
Rubicon’s fortunes took a turn for the worse shortly thereafter. According to Yahoo Finance, it started trading at around $60 per share, and, as of Thursday, it was trading at around 7 cents. Last year, the New York Stock Exchange sent the company a delisting notice, which the company said it would appeal.
The Herald-Leader recently published a timeline of Rubicon’s trajectory as well as content from an interview with Morris about the business.
Running: Democrat Joel Willett
Joel Willett is another new name in Kentucky politics, but his campaign began with a splash.
Shortly before his launch, the former CIA officer and government contractor was one of several people removed from a security clearance list by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. He suggests that occurred because his political ambitions as a Democrat had been publicized.
“Whatever their intentions were, it only made me more motivated to jump into this fight,” Willett told the Herald-Leader.
Like Forsythe, Willett has never held political office before and is leaning into his story of overcoming difficulties in his campaign.
In his launch video, Willett mentions that both of his parents struggled with opiod addiction, an improving but rampant issue in Kentucky. His father, he told the Herald-Leader, passed away in 2019 as the result of a fentanyl overdose.
The video ends with a tagline: “I’m not a billionaire. I’m not a politician. I’m just a Kentucky guy who fought like hell to get here. If you give me the chance, I will fight like hell for you.”
His early top issues include health care and affordability. He has emphasized the need to build more homes in order to stem the tide of rising home prices.
Willett told the Herald-Leader he moved back to Kentucky this summer.
With residency playing a role in candidate attacks in other races across the country, Willett has a response at the ready.
“The first time I ever left this state was when I joined the military, and that was in service to my country. I came back to Kentucky after that again to complete my education, and the state sent me off to public service and made it possible for me to go and help keep this country safe in DC,” he said.
“The state is home, and home has had an indelible pull on me.”
Running: Amy McGrath
A familiar name to Kentucky Democrats, Amy McGrath is running her third race for a seat to Kentucky’s federal delegation, she announced in early October.
McGrath gave Barr the best run for his money of any Democrat since he took office, losing to him by about three points in 2018.
Then, in 2020, she ran for U.S. Senate and was the Democratic nominee against McConnell. That effort fared worse, as she lost to McConnell by about 20 points despite raising more than $94 million.
McGrath told the Herald-Leader that this time around she chose to get in because she’s frustrated at the actions of Trump and Republicans in Washington.
“What we’re seeing from folks in power right now is not what most Kentuckians voted for. I don’t think any Kentuckians voted for higher prices or less health care. They didn’t vote for more taxes in the form of tariffs and putting rural hospitals at risk. That’s what we’re getting right now. These folks in office, these Republicans, they didn’t just fail to make things better — they intentionally made things worse,” McGrath said.
Like other Democrats, McGrath said she plans to skewer the Trump administration’s pushes on cuts to Medicaid spending, tariffs and the economy in her campaign.
In the aftermath of her 2020 campaign, faced some criticism from Democrats for the prodigious fundraising total. Maybe if those funds were raised for more competitive races, the thinking goes, then Democrats might have flipped a few extra House seats or another Senate seat like North Carolina.
What does McGrath have to say to those complaints?
For one, she points out that she outperformed the top of the ticket; former President Joe Biden lost to Trump by about 26 points in Kentucky in 2020.
The circumstances have also changed, she said.
“This is a different race, it’s a different year, it’s a midterm,” McGrath said. “I ran against a 30-year incumbent who was the Senate Majority Leader. Come on. No one’s going to promise me a rose garden in Kentucky, but we have a Democratic governor, this is an open seat, and with so much going on in our country and here in Kentucky, we absolutely can make this a race, and we absolutely can win.”
Running: Republican Michael Faris
Michael Faris, a helicopter repairman from Elizabethtown, is running an outsider campaign for U.S. Senate.
He is emphasizing his blue collar status in his run, and is open about the fact that he will raise and spend much less than Cameron, Morris or Barr.
Still, Faris is a staple at county party dinners and other GOP events. He frequently tells his story of growing up in foster care at these events.
Faris’ campaign is inflected with a strand of economic populism, critical of big business’ influence in American politics.
“It’s time for the mega companies to stop profiting at the expense of the American workers and small businesses. Mike will fight for a fair economy,” his website reads.
Unclear: Republican Thomas Massie
Thomas Massie, who represents Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, previously said he is “absolutely” running for reelection to his U.S. House seat..
The Northern Kentucky legislator, known for his contrarian brand of libertarian-infused politics, now says that door isn’t completely closed. He told the Herald-Leader he “wouldn’t rule it out.”
In the era of Trump, Massie has carved out a national role as a dissenting voice within the GOP on many issues. Those include his opposition to Trump’s recent marquee budget bill, the administration’s actions in Iran and Israel and, most notably, the administration’s handling of files related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
If he continues his bid for reelection to his House seat, Massie said he’s confident that he will win against any primary opponent, even if Trump supports them strongly.
Not running: Democrats Andy Beshear and Jacqueline Coleman
Kentucky’s two top Democrats — Beshear and Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman — have both ruled out Senate runs in 2026, according to those close to them.
“To spare my inbox, texts and voicemail today, just putting this here and on the record: He is not running for Senate,” Eric Hyers, Beshear’s chief political strategist, posted on social media.
Beshear, 47, has made the shortlist for operatives and media outlets alike as one of about a dozen Democrats who could run for president in 2028.
Coleman’s communications director JT Henderson made a similar post.
“I want to save your time. Regarding the (U.S. Senate) opening in 2026, she is not interested,” he wrote on social media.
Coleman was a public school educator prior to joining the Beshear ticket. She has also been vocal about her breast cancer scare in 2023.
Not running: Republicans Damon Thayer, David Osborne and Robert Stivers
Two men who have made their names known in Frankfort say they’re not running for McConnell’s seat.
Taking himself out of the running on social media was former Senate floor leader Damon Thayer, of Georgetown. However, he hinted an endorsement to come.
“There are several candidates who appear to be interested in seeking the seat, but I will not be among them. One of them is head & shoulders better than the others & I will endorse him at the appropriate time,” Thayer wrote.
The former state senator lives in Barr’s district and has not ruled out the possibility of running to replace him if the congressman leaves his current role.
House Speaker David Osborne, R-Prospect, is one of the most powerful men in Frankfort.
Osborne told the Herald-Leader that he would not seek the office.
After weeks of dancing around questions on whether or not he’d run for senate, Senate President Robert Stivers told the Herald-Leader in mid-April that he would not run for the U.S. Senate or any other Washington-based office.
Unclear: Democrat Rocky Adkins
On the other side of the aisle, Beshear senior advisor Rocky Adkins has not commented on if he’d consider running for McConnell’s seat.
Adkins was a longtime member of the Kentucky House before running for governor in 2019.
He came in second to Beshear and has worked in his office and maintained public visibility since then.
This story was originally published February 21, 2025 at 7:46 AM.
