Kentucky horse trainer, ‘centrist’ Democrat Dale Romans to run for US Senate
A horse trainer and self-described independent centrist launched his bid for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate in Kentucky on Wednesday.
Dale Romans, a Louisville native and one of the most successful trainers in Churchill Downs history, said in an interview with the Herald-Leader that a person with his unique background could flip the seat long held by GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell to blue in 2026.
He also said he wouldn’t toe a party line in office, something he thinks will draw voters back into the Democratic fold.
“Coming from a red state, you aren’t owned by the party. They can’t primary you because they wouldn’t gamble on losing the seat. So you can go in there and vote for what’s right for Kentucky,” Romans said.
Romans, 59, compared himself to Joe Manchin, the former Democratic senator from West Virginia.
Manchin’s reluctance on climate and spending issues drew the ire of many progressives, but he was a key vote for many of Democrats’ biggest legislative accomplishments of the last two decades and defied political gravity in deep red territory.
“He did a lot of good things for this country, and he voted for what was best for West Virginia and for the country. He was a deciding vote on a lot of issues where he didn’t go down party line, and I’m sure he had both sides mad at him quite a bit,” Romans said.
“I would like to be just like he was in Washington.”
Romans, 59, told the Herald-Leader he doesn’t believe Kentucky is as politically “red as everybody thinks it is” despite voting to reelect President Donald Trump by 30 points and not sending a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since the late Wendell Ford’s reelection in 1992.
His case in point was Gov. Andy Beshear’s 2023 reelection, where Beshear beat the Trump-endorsed former attorney general, Daniel Cameron, by five points.
“A lot of people voted for Trump, but we have seen that doesn’t mean that they vote for the people that he endorses… I don’t think people of Kentucky are going to vote for who they’re told to. I think they’re going to vote for who they want, and they’re gonna vote for the person, not the party,” Romans said.
Romans is No. 21 on the all-time horse trainer earnings list, according to horse racing website Equibase, having netted almost $127 million at the track. Romans went three years in a row with a horse in the top four at the Kentucky Derby from 2010 to 2012.
Kentucky has some history of horse industry executives turned politicians. Brereton Jones, the Democratic governor from 1991 to 1995, was a thoroughbred horse breeder prior to his election as lieutenant governor.
Romans was appointed to the Kentucky Horse Racing & Gaming Corporation by Beshear in March of this year. He said he’d spoken to Beshear about his run and that he wouldn’t be running for the seat if Beshear were interested.
“He encouraged me. He said, ‘We need people out there running,’” Romans said.
Romans added that while he has not spoken with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., directly, he’s spoken with members of Schumer’s staff about his run.
Though Romans is likely a wealthy individual, he told the Herald-Leader he does not plan to self-fund extensively.
“I figure if I can’t raise the money like everybody else running, then maybe the people don’t want me. So, I’m just going to go out and fundraise like everybody else does, and let the chips fall where they may,” Romans said.
Romans joins an unusually crowded Democratic field.
Amy McGrath, the 2020 nominee against McConnell, is running alongside Louisville Democratic state Rep. Pamela Stevenson, former U.S. Secret Service agent Logan Forsythe and former CIA officer Joel Willett. What’s more, 2022 nominee and former state representative Charles Booker is reportedly mulling a third run for U.S. Senate as a Democrat.
Policy focus
Romans stressed throughout the interview his status as an “independent Democrat.”
The first example he cited: the government shutdown.
Romans said he would have never cast a vote to shut the government down in the first place when the shutdown began on Sep. 30. During that vote, only three senators who caucus with Democrats — Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Angus King of Maine — voted with Republicans to continue funding the government.
Though that number has increased, paving the way for the likely end of the shutdown after six weeks, most Senate Democrats still voted not to open the government because the current Senate deal does not extend Affordable Care Act subsidies for millions of Americans.
“I think it was silly. I think that was Washington at its worst. I would have never voted for that. I would have voted for the continuing resolution and then kept working on trying to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies,” Romans said.
Another area where he breaks with party orthodoxy is transgender women’s participation in sports. That’s become a hot subject for debate in party ranks given the GOP’s fixation on the issue and potential 2028 presidential contender California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stance against it.
“I don’t have a problem with anyone being transgender, but I do not believe you should be able to compete in sports with naturally born females,” Romans said.
Romans also has complicated views on immigration, a topic with which he’s deeply familiar given the immigrant-heavy workforce in the horse industry.
As president of the Kentucky Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, an organization where he started holding a board seat in 1986, he has lobbied on Capitol Hill on the issue several times, he said. He expressed frustration with how both Democrats and Republicans treat the issue as a political football and haven’t been able to come to a bipartisan solution.
He lauded what he sees as the Trump administration’s “tightening” of the U.S. southern border, as attempted crossings have plummeted year over year. Still, Romans thinks the administration’s deportation push is getting the question of how to deal with undocumented immigrants who are here all wrong.
“We need a complete overhaul of the immigration system,” Romans said. “But in the meantime, to get there, I think that we should start documenting the people here instead of deporting them. I think that if they will be sponsored by an employer, they’re not taking an American’s job, they’ve been vetted, and they’re paying taxes, then we can give them a work permit to stay here.
“You can’t take an estimated 11 million laborers out of this country and expect prices not to go up. It’s about small business. We need a labor force,” he added.
On gun control, Romans said he “won’t be coming after anyone’s guns,” and it won’t be an issue he focuses on much. He did add that he didn’t approve of the ability for people to purchase what amounts to a machine gun, though.
Romans said he was pro-choice on the matter of abortion.
“You don’t have to like abortion, but you’ve got to understand the right of a woman to do what she wants with her body,” Romans said.
On foreign policy, Romans said he was not privy to all the information in the way that sitting members of Congress are. He didn’t offer much insight whether he considered himself a non-interventionist or more of a foreign policy hawk.
He did address one of the hotter discussion topics within Democratic politics: the U.S.’s relationship with Israel following the country’s campaign in Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of 69,000 Palestinians following a Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed 1,200 Israelis.
“I would say every country in the world has a right to protect their borders. I would always be pro-Israel. They are our key ally in the Middle East,” Romans said.
Romans didn’t offer much assessment of the Republican field to replace McConnell. Currently, Lexington tech entrepreneur Nate Morris, former Attorney General Daniel Cameron and Rep. Andy Barr lead the GOP field; all three are aligning closely with Trump.
“Let them fight it out,” Romans said.
