Democrat with Secret Service, legal background launches US Senate bid in KY
Kentucky Democrats will have a choice to make in the 2026 primary for U.S. Senate.
Logan Forsythe, a Lexington attorney and former U.S. Secret Service agent, entered the race to replace GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell on Tuesday morning. Alongside House Minority Leader Pam Stevenson, D-Louisville, Forsythe is the second Democrat with a professional campaign to join the race.
He told the Herald-Leader he’s running on a message of affordability, healthcare and education, and got in the race because he believes his background will help him resonate with voters.
Forsythe, 36, is under no illusions about the conservative leanings of Kentucky, a state that President Donald Trump won by more than 30 percentage points in 2024 and no Democratic senator has won since Wendell Ford’s 1992 reelection.
He said his story of reliance on programs Trump has proposed cutting will resonate with voters. In the recently passed “One Big Beautiful Bill,” Trump’s marquee piece of legislation in the early months of his second term, federal spending on both Medicaid and food stamps was decreased.
Forsythe 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. “I’m a first-generation college student, first-ever ever go to law school, and I could only do that because those initial programs growing up kept us alive, kept us in housing when we needed it, kept me healthy enough to continue to grow. Anytime I went to the doctor, Medicaid was there for me, and then after that I relied on grants, scholarships and student loans,” Forsythe said.
Forsythe’s campaign launch video leads with that background and a note of bipartisanship. He says he “would have taken a bullet” for the two presidents, a Republican and a Democrat, he helped protect as a Secret Service agent.
The video also highlights Forsythe’s hardworking roots, noting that he started stripping tobacco at age 7 and learned how to fix engines at 13. In his senior year, his family lived in a van.
“Somehow through all this, I kept my grades up, I played baseball and basketball, I made it to college, and then I got into law school,” Forsythe said.
He thinks the Republicans running for the office are short-sighted in their adherence to Trump. They’re “all trying to out-MAGA each other,” he said.
“The current people running to support the current administration — they want to do away with all these programs. 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 is now a personal injury attorney based in Lexington. In his time as a secret service agent, Forsythe said he worked across the country, one time driving a decoy version of the president’s iconic “The Beast” limousine. He left the Secret Service to become an attorney after suffering injuries from a car crash in 2022.
Forsythe graduated from the University of Kentucky and completed his legal training at Northern Kentucky University.
Forsythe’s firm, Morgan, Collins, Yeast & Salyer, recently made a $25,000 donation to Gov. Andy Beshear’s personal political action committee, In This Together.
He told the Herald-Leader he had yet to speak with Beshear, whom he reveres, or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY.
The person who pushed him to make the decision? In a roundabout way, it was his 13-year-old son, he said.
One evening early in the Trump presidency, his son approached him and asked if his law firm was one of the many that supported the Trump administration with pro bono work. His firm was not one of them, but the discussion prompted the question: Where was he in all this?
“No matter what I said to him to justify it, there was never going to be a good enough reason as to why I wasn’t doing anything,” Forsythe recalled.
Forsythe said he’s leaning into another familial connection on the campaign trail. His wife works in public education, a core pillar of his message. The main idea: Focus more funding on education.
“Kids should have buildings that they go into that don’t make them sick because they’re not infested with mold, they should have up to date school books, they should have computers tablets. Teachers should be paid a wage that actually is reflective of the work that they do, and there should never be a question in America, in any state, that education is one of our highest priorities,” Forsythe said.
When asked how he differed from mainstream Democrats — most of whom, other than Beshear, have fallen flat in Kentucky — Forsythe didn’t have much to say aside from emphasizing a focus on ideas that would help Kentuckians.
One of those ideas, he said, is to raise the federal minimum wage. That mark hasn’t budged from $7.25 an hour in years, though a very small percentage of American workers make that little, with starting wages in most service industries in the teens.
Forsythe differed on one hot topic in politics: foreign aid. When asked about the U.S.-Israel relationship, he expressed skepticism of the longtime U.S. ally and of all foreign aid, calling himself “a Kentucky and America first kind of person.”
“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.
As of late 2024, the U.S. had given Israel $228 billion in military aid dating back to the 1940s. That total for Ukraine, which is currently rebuffing an invasion by Russia, is $71 billion, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Though party orthodoxy is still to shy away from criticisms of Israel — Beshear has avoided the subject — more Democrats have offered sharp words for the country given the rising death toll and famine in Gaza.
But before any of those policy stances can matter, Forsythe would have to first get out of the Democratic primary. Having never held or run for office before, he faces a significant challenger in Stevenson, who is one of the highest-ranking Democrats in the state and has a previous unsuccessful statewide run under her belt when she fell short to Attorney General Russell Coleman.
“I admire her service to the country, to the state. She does have a very impressive resume, and I like her as a person. I believe that, Kentuckians deserve a choice, and I believe that (with) my background I can resonate with Kentuckians from anywhere, from all over. I want Kentuckians to have as many choices as they can coming into this to give us the best opportunity to flip this,” Forsythe said.
Another candidate rumored to be eyeing the race is Joel Willett, a Louisville native and former CIA officer detailed to the White House situation room during Democratic President Barack Obama’s second term. He recently made headlines when his security clearance was revoked by the Trump administration.
This story was originally published September 16, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
