What Amy McGrath must do to reignite enthusiasm and beat Mitch McConnell
In 2018, Lexington writer Gwenda Bond admired Amy McGrath so much that she almost took a break from writing books to work for her Sixth District Congressional campaign.
Her first ad, where McGrath talked about how women weren’t allowed in combat, energized thousands like Bond across the Bluegrass. Even though McGrath ultimately came up short against incumbent U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, she left legions of fans who were expected to flock to her side when she announced her race against U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell.
Only this time around, many self-described progressives like Bond were much more inspired by state Rep. Charles Booker. And while McGrath apparently prevailed over Booker on Tuesday, she will have some work to do to win those much-needed votes back to beat McConnell.
“I came to Booker late in the campaign after watching him show us what he’d be like as a Senator, how he stepped up in a crisis after the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd,” Bond said. “We saw him perform the job the way we wanted, with compassion, sincerity and drive.”
To many, McGrath seemed “over-consulted,” and scared to offend anyone, which generally impresses no one.
“She has to get back to that original place where she doesn’t seem over-managed, where it seems like her positions haven’t been so carefully crafted by advisors,” Bond said.
This election was unique in many ways; our first pandemic primary with early voting, mail-in ballots, and almost no campaigning. It would be interesting to do a survey on the number of people who sent in their mail-in ballots before Booker’s surge. McGrath’s losses in Lexington and Louisville — where she will have to rack up huge totals to beat McConnell — showed her vulnerabilities with the Democrat’s progressive wing. The gamble is that leftist Democrats will have no choice but support her to beat the most hated politician in the United States, but to do so, she needs new and reluctant voters to come into the fold.
It’s a political tightrope that McConnell doesn’t have to balance.
“She doesn’t have to move way to the left, but she has to state positions on issues and not be backtracking on them,” said Berea College political science professor John Heyrman. “It’s always extremely difficult for a Democrat to win a statewide race in Kentucky.”
McGrath, whose inept needle-threading over Trump and McConnell got her labeled the derisive “pro-Trump Democrat,” could look to the example of Gov. Andy Beshear. In 2019, he managed to campaign against Trump policies, without explicitly campaigning against Trump.
“For example on healthcare, Beshear said he would support his father’s legacy, by expanding healthcare access in Kentucky,” even though it was in clear opposition to the Trump administration, Heyrman said.
McGrath will also have to persuade Booker to campaign for her, and get his very excited base to vote for the person they were less excited about.
Last week, I talked to a friend, a moderate Democrat, who said they voted for Booker, not because they agreed with all his positions but because Booker made it very clear what they were.
As largely unpopular as McConnell is, McGrath has to be more than the anti-McConnell. She’s made it clear she’s ready to get tough with him; she needs to use that same toughness to stand up for her positions with clarity.
Most of all, she needs to take the authentic qualities that appeared in her first campaign into her second. I’ve talked to many others who loved McGrath when they talked to her one on one, but were less enthusiastic after they saw her on TV or on the stump. Bond is one of them.
“She needs to figure out how that quality translates as a candidate,” Bond said. “What Democrats want is someone they believe is a real person.”
This story was originally published June 30, 2020 at 3:31 PM.
