Kentucky ’26 Senate race already sees attack ads, PAC spending in GOP primary
Attacks are already being lobbed at the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate in Kentucky with the primary election still nearly a year away.
And the negative onslaught has only intensified in recent days as a third high-profile candidate entered the race.
Among the claims being made: Nate Morris has undergone an “embarrassing” political makeover, and Andy Barr is “bought by woke banks.” And “Fake Nate” Morris is the subject of a whole website created by Daniel Cameron’s team.
Morris, a Lexington tech and insurance entrepreneur, entered the race late last week with an announcement on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast. He joined former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron and current 6th Congressional District Rep. Andy Barr in the GOP field.
The field is likely set and the knives are definitely out.
Most of the critical ads against the candidates are being supported by outside spending groups like political action committees or so-called “dark money” nonprofits, whose sources of funding aren’t traceable.
Four separate outside groups have spent money denigrating candidates in this race since Morris’ launch Thursday evening. Total spending on the videos and distribution of them won’t be publicly available until mid-July.
Here’s a rundown of what these groups, most of them not directly affiliated with any campaign or candidate, are saying and who they’re supporting.
Attacks against Morris begin
Most of the recent barrage of attacks — by digital ad, by television commercial and by text — has been directed at Morris’ nascent campaign.
Morris’ team is framing this as a “pathetic” attempt to beat down the candidate most vocally opposed to Sen. Mitch McConnell, the longtime senator they all seek to replace in 2026.
Conor McGuinness, Morris’ campaign spokesperson, said that Barr, Cameron and their supporters are in “full meltdown mode” because he is criticizing his opponents as “fully-owned subsidiaries of Mitch McConnell.”
“That’s why they are pathetically resorting to lying about Nate. The fact is, Nate is the only political outsider in this race, the only candidate not owned by Mitch McConnell, and the only candidate Donald Trump can trust in the U.S. Senate to deliver his America First agenda,” McGuinness said.
One PAC, Kentucky First Political Action, was ready with an ad featuring an actor playing Morris. The ad, titled “Morris Makeover,” claims Morris has paid a high price for consultants to re-brand him in the image of President Donald Trump.
The ad begins with a shot of the actor playing Morris in a vest with his feet propped on a desk displaying photos of three Republicans disliked by Trump: McConnell, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and former Utah senator Mitt Romney.
“Nate Morris joined left-wing Europeans signing the Paris climate pledge – he even wants to ban plastic straws. His DC flacks have to shred his record as a woke CEO,” the ad says, in reference to actions taken by Rubicon, the software company he founded focused on the waste business.
The ad ends with a shot of assistants placing a Trump-esque wig and a red hat on his head.
“The Morris makeover: it’s just embarrassing,” it says.
The Cameron campaign itself also published, shortly after Morris’ announcement, a website titled fakenate.com. The page similarly points to many instances of Morris’ work as CEO, such as a letter he penned in June 2020 expressing a commitment to fight a “legacy of injustice” against African-Americans in the United States.
Morris added that the racial justice protests of the time — police had, one week prior, killed George Floyd – were “a manifestation of the pain and anger that so many are feeling.” The campaign team for Cameron, who is Black, wrote that the letter amounted to “fanning the flames of racial tension and justifying the riots in response to the death of George Floyd.”
As attorney general, Cameron oversaw the controversial investigation into the police killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, another high-profile case that stoked protests across the country.
Another PAC, one supporting Barr called Keep America Great, suggested it would get in on the action as well in a statement sent to press.
“Nate Morris is a fraud. It’s as simple as that,” the PAC said before listing off much of the same information mentioned in the other ads.
The group is also running a social media ad superimposing Morris’ face on a transgender flag, pointing to the creation of a “special employee group for gay & transgender staff” at Rubicon.
Hometown Freedom Action Network, a Washington-based super PAC, sent a mass text on the same day that Morris announced stating that Morris was a “radical liberal’s dream candidate,” including a graphic calling him a “Pride Month promoter.”
Meanwhile, Morris has been lobbing bombs from well before the word “go,” and they only grew more intense once the campaign began in earnest.
His first ad, “Garbage Day,” featured him literally throwing representations of McConnell, Barr and Cameron in a garbage truck; the setting was relevant for Morris given his history with Rubicon.
Morris has centered his campaign around denigrating McConnell, going harshest of the three GOP candidates with significant name ID on the 83-year-old senator. The prevailing theme of his first rally, held alongside conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, was to “rid the nation of the stench of Mitch.“
He also made negative comments about Barr’s physical appearance as well as speculated about Cameron’s standing among McConnell donors during an appearance on a show hosted by Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser and prominent figure in the American far right.
Group wants to bring down Barr
Club For Growth, a high-powered conservative advocacy group, has its sights set on bringing Barr down and says it will spend “whatever it takes” to beat him.
It aired an ad two months before Barr’s announcement, a few days before his launch date and is now out with yet another.
The latest ad highlights an interview Barr gave last year calling McConnell a “mentor,” stating that Barr “will always be Mitch’s mini-me.”
More is likely to come.
The 2026 race is the first open U.S. Senate in Kentucky seat since 2010, when Sen. Rand Paul defeated former secretary of state Trey Grayson, who McConnell supported at the time.
For reference, Ohio’s open seat, which saw Vice President JD Vance, a Morris ally, emerge victorious, saw a GOP primary field spend $66 million. If Kentucky’s primary battle comes even close to that mark, this latest barrage of negative ads and messaging will only be a fraction of the final total come May 2026.
This story was originally published July 2, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
