KY Senate candidate Nate Morris rallies with Charlie Kirk against ‘stench of Mitch’
New U.S. Senate candidate Nate Morris and conservative influencer Charlie Kirk agreed on one major point Monday morning at Morris’ first rally: the problem is other Republicans.
“The real problem is Republicans that call themselves Republicans, when in reality they aren’t,” Kirk said. “Kentucky can send a message heard around the world.”
That message? That Kentucky GOP voters can give a big thumbs down to longtime Sen. Mitch McConnell, who is not seeking reelection to the seat that Morris is seeking in 2026.
“We want to end the McConnell mafia, and we’re going to send a message to the rest of the country with that,” Kirk said.
Morris, who has hammered McConnell since the beginning of the year when rumors began to circulate that he’d seek the seat, has made anti-McConnell sentiment the hallmark of his young campaign. Monday’s event was no different.
The 44-year-old tech and insurance entrepreneur told a crowd of roughly 1,000 that “Americans were let down by how Mitch McConnell ran the Senate in the last 20 years,” that he was the “nastiest politician in the history of America,” and called on the state Republican party to rescind the planned lifetime achievement award it will give to the longtime senator.
The event in Shepherdsville Monday was equal parts an introduction to Morris, a stump speech and a Kirk roadshow.
In fact, all the attendees interviewed by the Herald-Leader primarily attended for the purpose of seeing Kirk, whose viral videos on college campuses posted by his organization Turning Point USA are credited with helping fuel a conservative swing among young male voters. According to exit polling, young men swung 15 points toward the GOP from 2020 to 2024.
“He’s the one that’s primarying (Northern Kentucky U.S. Rep. Thomas) Massie, right?” Billy Walker, a 52-year-old from Bullitt County, asked when probed on his thoughts about Morris before the event.
Morris is squaring off in the Senate GOP primary against former Attorney General Daniel Cameron and current 6th Congressional District Rep. Andy Barr.
Still, Morris’ anti-McConnell message seemed primed for a voter like Walker, who said Cameron was too connected to McConnell and he didn’t know enough about Barr.
“Screw Mitch McConnell,” Walker said. “He should have been gone a long time ago.”
The event proceeded largely as a dialogue between Kirk and Morris aimed at that very kind of voter: Republicans disillusioned with McConnell after 40 years and ready for someone to trash the senator in the way that Morris has.
Morris, who has received some flak from state Republicans for his negative focus on the 83-year-old senator, pointed to McConnell’s flagging popularity in the state when asked if he was worried he might be going too negative.
“I think that the numbers speak for themselves. I’ve seen them: Mitch McConnell is one of the least popular politicians in the history of America, and here in Kentucky I don’t think that’s any different,” Morris said.
What did Nate Morris say?
Morris said that the origins of his running for this office has to do with that very disillusionment coming from one of the most powerful people in America.
He said he didn’t think he would run for this office before he got a phone call from Vice President JD Vance, a personal friend of Morris’ who was then a U.S. senator from Ohio.
“He says to me ‘Nate, you know McConnell, he’s gotta go. Maybe you should look at running for that seat,’” Morris said.
The candidate said he didn’t start thinking seriously about it when he looked at Barr and Cameron getting ready to get in.
“I thought to myself, ‘These guys, they’re nothing but puppets for Mitch McConnell,’” Morris said.
He went on to characterize McConnell, whose tenure leading the Senate GOP was historic in its longevity and particularly its influence over the federal judiciary, as evidenced by the 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court of the United States, as out of touch and disloyal to President Donald Trump.
“What does he know about the factories that have closed in Kentucky because of NAFTA? What does he know about working people that are trying to make it every day, trying to live the dream? We’re getting crushed by the elites in Washington who know nothing about Kentucky, know nothing about our people, and they take us for granted and they use their profits to enrich themselves and to hurt our people. What does he know?” Morris asked.
“Not a thing!” one attendee interjected to crowd applause.
The message resonated with Troy Keller, a 52-year-old sales worker in Louisville, who called McConnell a “RINO,” short for “Republican in name only.”
“I liked the ‘taking out the trash’ part,” Keller said of Morris’ message.
Morris shared that he received a letter from the Republican Party of Kentucky immediately after his campaign launch warning him of speaking ill of fellow Republicans at an upcoming statewide GOP dinner. He believes that’s a reference to McConnell, who is set to be awarded at the dinner.
The party confirmed with the Herald-Leader that the letter was sent to all Republican candidates for Senate.
While much of Morris’ bluster on McConnell is targeted at voters, some also seems directed at an audience of one: Trump, who has been a longtime critic of McConnell.
Morris even launched his campaign last week during a sympathetic interview with the president’s son, Donald Trump, Jr.
He told reporters that he had spoken with Trump directly about his run.
“I have talked to the president, and look, the president is going to do what he wants to do, when he wants to do it. I believe that the people we’ve got around us, from the MAGA movement, speaks volumes — how we stand as an outsider, how we stand as a business person, how we’re looking at this race and how we’re aligned with the president.”
Kirk also prodded Morris on several topics familiar to conservatives: transgender women’s participation in women’s sports, immigration, cost of living issues, his Christian faith.
Morris has some ties to McConnell, interning for him and his wife, then-cabinet secretary Elaine Chao during his undergraduate years, as well as fundraising for him in 2014.
Fellow Republican opponents have also hit him on his relationship with international, sometimes called “globalist” in the parlance of the far right, business organizations like the World Economic Forum and the Trilateral Commission. He framed those as ancient history in a press appearance after the event.
“I’ve denounced those groups, and I think that those groups stand for everything that’s anti-America first. I’m willing to denounce these things. My opponents won’t denounce Mitch McConnell,” Morris said.
Morris’ ending note? Ridding Kentucky and the country of the so-called “stench of Mitch.”
“Kentucky is going to fundamentally change when we send new leadership to Washington, once and for all, and rid the nation of the stench of Mitch.“
This story was originally published June 30, 2025 at 2:30 PM.
