KY Senate poll: Andy Barr edges ahead of Daniel Cameron; Booker leads Dems
The first independent poll of Kentucky primary voters in a year was released Thursday, showing Rep. Andy Barr gaining an advantage over a crowded Republican field and former senate candidate Charles Booker with an early lead among Democrats.
Emerson College Polling joined with local television station Fox 56 to conduct the survey of 523 likely Republican voters and 381 Democrats from Jan. 31 to Feb. 2.
For Republicans, perhaps the biggest takeaway is the erasure of former Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s lead in the poll. Barr led Cameron in the survey with 24% to Cameron’s 21%, with Lexington tech entrepreneur Nate Morris not too far behind. It contrasts with previous surveys of the race, where even pro-Barr and pro-Morris, a Lexington entrepreneur, groups had Cameron clearly leading in the race to replace outgoing Sen. Mitch McConnell.
There’s a lot of space, however, for candidates of both parties to maneuver. Among GOP voters, 38% were undecided. About 43% of Democrats were undecided.
Here’s how Republican voters responded, broken down by percentage, when asked who they would vote for if the primary were held today:
- Barr: 24%.
- Cameron: 21%.
- Morris: 14%.
- Other: 4%.
- Undecided: 38%.
The margin of error in the GOP poll was +/- 4.2%.
On the Democratic side, Booker, who was the nominee in 2022, paces the field by an 11-point margin, with 30% of Democratic support. Amy McGrath, 2020 Senate nominee and 2018 congressional nominee in Central Kentucky, was in second place with 19% support. House Minority Floor Leader Pamela Stevenson, D-Louisville, garnered 4% of the respondents.
Here’s how the 381 Democratic voters responded, broken down by percentage, when asked who they would vote for if the primary were held today:
- Booker: 30%.
- McGrath: 19%.
- Stevenson: 4%.
- Other: 43%.
The margin of error for the Democratic poll was +/- 5%.
The poll also showed solid approval ratings for both Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Republican President Donald Trump. About 52% of the voters surveyed — including 97 independent voters — said they approved of Beshear’s job, while 31% disapproved. For Trump, 53% approved and 39% disapproved.
Full poll results can be viewed online.
The GOP side
The Republican result marks a shift from all previously released polls — particularly for Cameron, a former attorney general and gubernatorial candidate with high name ID, who led by a significant margin in earlier polls.
Cameron’s campaign manager, Nathanael Hirt, wrote in a statement to the Herald-Leader that the poll amounts to “lies.”
“No one — including Andy Barr — thinks Andy Barr is winning. This poll is unserious and silly. Polls one day ago and two weeks ago showed Daniel up double digits. Nothing moves that fast except lies,” Hirt wrote.
Emerson College is a well-respected pollster. The Silver Bulletin, a site run by data guru Nate Silver, gave Emerson College an “A” in its ratings of American pollsters.
The group also collected data on which demographics prefer which candidates.
“With just over three months until primary day, Rep. Barr and former Attorney General Cameron start this race as frontrunners, while Nate Morris follows within striking distance. Barr’s support is highest among male voters, 27%, voters over 70, 38%, and voters with a college or postgraduate degree, at 31%, while Cameron’s support peaks among voters in their 40s and 50s at 25%,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling.
Barr’s team liked the result.
“Andy leads in the polls, is the only candidate dominating Democrats in the general election, has more major endorsements than both campaigns combined, and is crushing his competition in the race for fundraising with 10 times the cash on hand of his nearest opponent. After over $8M spent, Nate Morris’ campaign is crashing harder than his failed green energy company after it went on the NYSE,” Barr campaign spokesperson Alex Bellizzi wrote.
Just one day before the Emerson poll came out, Morris’ campaign released its own survey of Kentucky GOP voters.
In a poll of 800 likely Kentucky Republican primary voters conducted Jan. 27-29, Cameron led the pack, but Morris had risen from his previous showings.
Shared first with the New York Post, that poll had Cameron with 29% support, Barr at 21% and Morris with 18%.
According to the pollster for the survey sponsored by Morris — Tony Fabrizio, who was the pollster for two of President Donald Trump’s campaigns — Kentucky Republicans have moved more away from Cameron and toward Morris in recent months. A survey conducted by the firm Fabrizio, Lee & Associates in August had Cameron at 40%, Barr with 17% and Morris with just 5% support.
Morris’ team is eager to point out that the first-time candidate, recently supported by a $10 million Elon Musk gift to a political action committee, is on the rise from his previous single-digit poll results.
“Nate is the only candidate moving in the right direction, he has a massive cash advantage between his self-funding ability and $10 million of support from Elon Musk, and most importantly, he is the only political outsider and America First conservative in the race. We look forward to victory in May,” Morris campaign spokesperson Conor McGuinness wrote in a statement.
Though Cameron is the only candidate to have run a previous statewide campaign, claiming a place in the history books when he became Kentucky’s first Black attorney general in 2019 and later losing to Beshear in 2023, he has a significant cash disadvantage.
As of the end of 2025, Barr had $6.47 million on hand, while Morris claimed $1.42 million and Cameron had $630,000.
Michael Faris, a candidate who lacks statewide name ID but has built some grassroots support, ended the year with a negative cash-on-hand figure.
The poll also surveyed Kentucky Republicans about McConnell, whom the senate candidates are seeking to replace after McConnell’s 40-plus-year tenure in the seat. Roughly 15% of respondents approved of the job McConnell is doing as senator, and about 68% disapproved.
Democrats registered 80% disapproval and 8% approval. Of the Republican respondents, 58% disapproved of McConnell, and 22% approved.
Meanwhile, a slight majority of Kentuckians disapprove of fellow Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul, 32% to 30%. Republicans approved of Paul 38% to 28%; comparatively, 40% of Democrats disapproved of his job performance to 20% who approved.
Democratic takeaways
Booker’s lead among Democrats reflects broad support among all age ranges except elderly Kentuckians, Kimball said.
“Booker leads McGrath among all age groups, with the exception of Democratic voters 70 and over, who break for McGrath by 10 points, 29% to 19%,” Kimball noted.
Dale Romans, a Louisville horse trainer who raised significant cash after his October launch, received only three votes among the 381 voters, or 0.8%. But Romans had the most cash on hand of any candidate heading into 2026.
Logan Forsythe, a Lexington attorney and former U.S. Secret Service agent, got six votes, or about 1.7%.
Though Kentucky voters broadly approve of Beshear’s job performance, they’re less convinced he should run for president in 2028, which he is openly considering. About 35% said he should run, compared with 48% who said he shouldn’t, with a predictably stark respective divide among Democrats and Republicans.
This story was originally published February 5, 2026 at 8:02 AM.
