Can Daniel Cameron repeat his 2023 primary win? KY politicos discuss his Senate chances
.JPG "“What we saw from Mitch McConnell in voting against Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was just flat-out wrong,” Daniel Cameron said in a recent social media post.")
Allies of Daniel Cameron see the former attorney general’s run to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell as deja vu all over again.
A talented young Louisville-based politician with strong statewide name ID running against two Central Kentuckians — one with a strong political network and one with a lot of money at their disposal.
When that tape ran in 2023, Cameron cruised to victory.
The then-AG garnered 48% of the vote to former commissioner of agriculture Ryan Quarles’ 22% and GOP megadonor and ex-ambassador Kelly Craft’s 17%.
It’s not a perfect analogy, but Cameron’s backers see a similar situation in a potential three-way Senate GOP primary in 2026.
Rep. Andy Barr. R-KY, has strong party ties but is less-known statewide due to his district only covering the greater Lexington area; Kentucky tech entrepreneur Nate Morris ostensibly has money to spend but starts with very low name ID.
Of the three, only Cameron has formally launched his campaign. Barr and Morris have both strongly signaled their interest, but stopped short of declaring a bid for office.
Opponents and observers, however, say Cameron is vulnerable.
They highlight his general election loss, strong ties to McConnell — a politician with whom the GOP base has grown more frustrated — and the uncertainty of what Republican President Donald Trump will do.
Brandon Moody, the general consultant for the Cameron campaign, said that his candidate’s “relationship” with voters is key.
“Daniel Cameron is going to win because he has a relationship with Kentucky voters,” Moody wrote in a statement to the Herald-Leader. “They trust him. He has the courage of his convictions and a conservative record to back it up.
“He is the most conservative and the most in line with President Trump, of course.”
That is the theory of the case for the nascent Cameron campaign: voters know him as a person as well as his record.
“Name ID” is the word that many in the Kentucky political scene uses to describe Cameron’s biggest strength.
Whether it’s the historical nature of having been the commonwealth’s first Black attorney general, making national headlines for his controversial investigation into the police killing of Breonna Taylor, or his loss against Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear in 2023, Kentucky Republican voters know him.
University of Kentucky political science professor D. Stephen Voss, who studies voter behavior, said that Cameron’s particular sort of name ID is advantageous.
When voters see a candidate via news coverage — also known as “earned media” — or social media, or hear about them in any context that isn’t a political advertisement, the research says that’s more valuable, Voss said.
“All things being equal, news coverage has more of a payoff for politicians than their own advertising,” Voss said. “Voters don’t fully trust ads because they understand that it’s coming from the candidate. We may think voters are easily swayed by advertising, but they’re not because their guard is up.”
Voss added that partisan media is of particular value to candidates. Cable television networks like Fox and Newsmax, both of which Cameron has been regularly interviewed by in his job leading an anti-”woke” organization.
A challenge for potential candidates like Morris, who starts with very low name ID, and Barr, who is well-known in his district but less so in Northern Kentucky, Louisville and Western Kentucky, will be cranking up the earned media and maximizing advertising’s effectiveness.
Barr, who has a healthy campaign account that could transfer over to a Senate run, and Morris with own personal wealth will likely be able to air plenty of television ads.
Part of that campaign will likely mean bringing down Cameron a notch.
Some saw an opening to do so when the first poll of the prospective race was released earlier this month. It showed Cameron with near-universal name ID and around 37% support in a three-person field against Barr and Morris.
OJ Oleka, a GOP candidate for state treasurer in 2023 who now runs the national conservative State Financial Officers Foundation, says Cameron’s previous primary wins are the most important statistic. In addition to his 2023 victory, Cameron won by about 10 percentage points over former state senator Wil Schroder in 2019.
And Oleka questions how voters will shift away from someone they’ve already rewarded, particularly since previous campaigns have already put out negative ads sourced by opposition files, colloquially known as “oppo.”
“Yes, he lost in a close race to Beshear, but if you’re looking at what happened between May of 2023 and now, what would happen to significantly cut down his support? He’s the same outstanding political talent, and he’s back in the fight supporting President Trump. If the oppo files didn’t work in ‘19 or ‘23, I’m not certain how they’ll work in ‘26,” Oleka said.
“I’m just not sure what would convince Republican voters to do what they’ve never done, which is reject Daniel Cameron.”
Voss said that, though not impossible, it’s harder to bring down candidates whom voters already know a lot about.
“The bigger a store of information on a candidate we have, the more likely that new information about them will be a drop in the bucket,” Voss said.
The case against Daniel Cameron
There is one person that most people interviewed for this story agree could sink Cameron: Donald Trump.
Trump backed Cameron early for his gubernatorial run — and could again — but Morris and Barr both have ties to the president.
Morris claims Vice President JD Vance as a good friend, and Barr, who rallied with Trump during his 2018 congressional race, was the Trump campaign state chair last year.
Many think a Trump endorsement would effectively end the race.
Eric Deters, a Northern Kentucky Republican media personality who placed fourth with 6% of the vote in the 2023 governor’s primary, is one of them.
“If Trump endorses the Simon Kenton High School janitor, that janitor will be the next United States Senator from Kentucky,” Deters said.
“I just feel like Trump’s endorsement is that powerful.”
So how could that endorsement play out?
When it comes to Trump, nobody really knows.
Morris has clearly tried to assert himself as the most pro-Trump of the potential contenders, and has been getting some early support on social media from people with ties to Vance. He’s been the most forceful repudiator of McConnell, who upset the president’s base with his votes against a few high-profile cabinet nominees.
Barr has had time to develop contacts and relationships in Trump’s sphere given his Washington-based role. He’s also been loudly pro-Trump in recent weeks, amplifying that message through conservative influencer Benny Johnson and via a recent mass text to state Republicans highlighting how he “SLAMS McConnell for selling America out to China.”
But unpredictability is a hallmark of the president’s style and few, even privately, have projected strong confidence that the president will weigh in early for their preferred candidate.
If anything, political insiders cast doubt that Trump will endorse early at all.
“Considering that he lost in November (2023) and because of his close ties to Sen. McConnell, it is probably unlikely Cameron can count on President Trump’s early endorsement this time around,” Kentucky Republican political consultant TJ Litafik said.
Voss pointed out that Trump’s use of his endorsement power in the past, his backing of Cameron being an exception, was more focused on picking the winning horse than helping them along to victory.
“Trump and his people are not stupid. They know how to read the tea leaves. They weren’t just endorsing with no regard at all for likelihood of victory,” Voss said.
There’s the possibility, he said, that Trump himself waits until there’s a clear winner in the polls near the May 2026 primary date. Some have also harkened back to Trump’s endorsement of all three major GOP candidates in a Missouri governor’s race.
“Choose any one of them — You can’t go wrong,” he wrote on social media.
Deters, who has attended several events at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida and hosted members of the Trump family at his “Freedom Fest” conservative rally, offered his own assessment of how Trump might lean.
A die-hard Trump fan, Deters said he’d support whoever the president picks; however, he thinks Barr has a good shot.
“I know this about Trump and Trump-world: the real thing he cares about is the poll and the money. President Trump does not like backing somebody who’s not going to win. He likes to win,” Deters said.
“On those two fronts, I would think that Barr is in a great position.”
Money will be an ongoing question for Cameron, too, especially given Barr and Morris’ access to capital.
Though he was buoyed by outside spending, his campaign haul and that of the Republican Party of Kentucky paled in comparison to Beshear’s and the Kentucky Democratic Party’s work on Beshear’s behalf.
A super PAC, Fight for Kentucky, filed to raise money in the 2026 senate race on the same day that Cameron announced his run. It did not return questions regarding which candidate it would support.
Will 2023 loss to Andy Beshear matter?
One potential area of weakness for Cameron is if he’s effectively branded as a “loser,” a tag that Trump avoids.
Eric Hyers, the chief political strategist for Gov. Andy Beshear who ran the campaign that beat Cameron by five percentage points, pointed this out in a statement to the Herald-Leader.
“With Trump’s endorsement and Mitch McConnell’s backing, Daniel Cameron lost by five points in a state Donald Trump carried by 30 the next year — in part because he ran a campaign that was obsessed with culture war issues and unconnected to the things Kentuckians cared about the most, like good jobs,” Hyers wrote.
A spokesperson for Barr last week said Cameron “embarrassed” Trump with his loss to Beshear, pointing out that he fell short by 19 percentage points in Barr’s home district.
And 2023 wasn’t that long ago. Though its established that Trump doesn’t like a “losing” brand, there is a question of how much it matters to the public.
The loss could linger in the public zeitgeist, University of Pikeville political science professor Jeffrey Tyler Syck argued.
“Despite being perceived as a rising star in the Republican Party in a ruby red state, he lost to a Democrat by a fairly embarrassing margin, under performing every other Republican candidate running for state wide office,” Syck said.
“So while he does have name recognition which can go a long way in a crowded primary, he is nonetheless best known as a loser.”
The Mitch McConnell factor
The other weight that opponents are trying to tie onto Cameron is his ties to McConnell.
They’re undeniable: Cameron started his political career as an intern in McConnell’s office while he played for the University of Louisville’s football team and studied in the McConnell Scholars Program. He served as legal counsel for McConnell. McConnell’s chief of staff helped run Cameron’s 2023 gubernatorial campaign.
On social media, Morris has taken to calling Cameron “Mitch’s Manchurian candidate,” referencing a novel and movie where a character is brainwashed by anti-American forces.
“Mitch McConnell’s Manchurian candidate (Daniel Cameron) is nervous because he knows KY doesn’t want a Mitch puppet as our next Senator,” Morris wrote on X. His entire political career was handed to him on a silver platter by Mitch, which is why he refused to criticize Mitch for selling Trump out.”
Cameron’s actions in the early days of his campaign suggest that he’s trying to put some daylight between himself and the 83-year-old senator.
In a social media video, Cameron touted his anti-diversity, equity and inclusion credentials, the fact that he was the first elected Kentucky officeholder to endorse Trump for his 2024 presidential bid, his disappointment in McConnell’s cabinet confirmation votes and his opposition to further funding for Ukraine — “enough is enough,” he said.
Funding for Ukraine in its war against Russia has been one of McConnell’s key priorities in his final term. Trump has put that funding on shaky ground, seeking closer relationships with Russia in recent weeks.
Cameron made it clear whose side he was on in the video.
“What we saw from Mitch McConnell in voting against Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was just flat-out wrong,” Cameron said. “You should expect a senator from Kentucky to vote for those nominees to advance the America First agenda.
“If I was in the senate, I would have voted for those nominees because I recognize it reflects your values and it supports that agenda.”
The lone Democratic campaign seems to agree that McConnell ties will not play well in the state.
Johnson Smith, senior advisor to the campaign of state House Minority Floor Leader Pamela Stevenson, hinted that they will use McConnell against the Republican nominee.
He lumped Barr — who previously called McConnell a “mentor” — alongside Cameron.
“We won’t be surprised if Daniel Cameron is the nominee. We won’t be surprised if Andy Barr is the nominee,” Smith wrote. “Kentuckians don’t want a Senator who learned everything about the job from Mitch McConnell.”
This story was originally published February 25, 2025 at 9:50 AM.
