Kentucky’s long tenure as Mitch McConnell’s playground is at an end, for which our Democracy is thankful. During his decades in office, he helped weaken the Voting Rights Act, refused to hold the president responsible for the January 6th riot at the capitol, and killed campaign finance reform bills aiming to limit corporate meddling in The People’s ballot box.
McConnell’s America is one in which the people he serves — the president’s elite inner circle — no longer have the interests of Kentucky families at heart. Kentucky voters should be wary of making this same mistake twice; working families cannot afford to send another Trump fanboy to the front lines in Washington to help line the president’s pockets while our neighbors pinch pennies to afford a tank of gas and groceries.
Several national polls have indicated the nation’s opinion of the president is at a new low for his second term, particularly when the economy is in question, as noted by the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research:
Public views of President Trump’s handling of the economy have declined. Thirty percent approve of his handling of the economy, down from 38% in March. Seventy-two percent say the country is heading in the wrong direction, about the same as in February.
Seeing this, why any candidate would see the sinking ship that is the president’s polling numbers and decide to scurry aboard is a mystery. Yet Senate candidate Nate Morris is trying.
A recent mass-market mailer circulating locally proclaimed “Trump Guy Nate Morris” as “100% pro-Trump” and endorsed by Charlie Kirk. While Morris touts himself as a political outsider who is ready to “take out the trash” in Washington, his campaign has been endorsed by the Senate Conservatives Fund, and he announced his candidacy on Donald Trump Jr.’s show.
More to the point, he has also reportedly received $10 million from Elon Musk, who is hardly known as a Washington outsider.
Morris’ campaign page states, “his greatest inspiration growing up was his grandfather, who was the head of the local auto union. He understands the struggles of working families because he has lived them.”
Yet this is in stark contrast to his loyalties with the least-liked president in history, who has a long history of destroying workers’ rights and whose policies have only widened the divide between the nation’s wealthiest 1% and the rest of us.
As reported by the Economics Policy Institute, “In March [2025], Trump issued an executive order that stripped union protections from more than 1 million federal workers across dozens of federal agencies.” As an example, the article indicates that Trump’s Department of Veteran Affairs canceled union contracts of 400,000 employees in August of 2025, further marking the president as one of the biggest union busters in history.
In contrast to Morris, former state representative and senate candidate Charles Booker has been endorsed by every Kentucky branch of the Communications Workers of America union as well as the IUE-CWA Local 83761 and United Steelworkers Local 14581.
“The issues I’m fighting for — affordability, healthcare as a human right, protections and dignity for workers — are not partisan,” Booker recently told The Courier-Journal. “You don’t have to agree with me on every issue to know the system isn’t working for you. I’m running to change that.”
Booker is joined in the race by democratic candidates Amy McGrath, Dale Romans, Col. Pamela Stevenson, and Logan Forsythe. Their accomplishments range from serving as an Air Force Colonel, to serving in the House of Representatives, to being the first woman in the Marines to fly a fighter jet in a combat mission. None, however, are touting their devotion to the nation’s first felony president. Nor have they found themselves swimming in the deep pockets of former political appointees to the president.
As Col. Stevenson pointed out in a recent candidate forum, “We have to make sure we’re taking care of Kentucky families, and we’re not doing a really great job of that right now.”
On Facebook she added that, “When a parent has to beg for [medical] care for their sick child, that’s not a policy issue — that’s a leadership failure. When seniors run out of meals, that’s not a budget problem — that’s a failure to protect people. I’ve sat with these families. I’ve seen what happens when the system doesn’t show up. Kentucky deserves better than this — and we can do better.”
Kentuckians deserve a candidate who has more independence of spirit than what $10 million-worth of campaign strings that Elon Musk’s donation just attached to the self-proclaimed “outsider” Morris. The working families who make up nearly 40% of Kentucky SNAP participants deserve someone who not only knows their struggles but appreciates their vote and works for them, not other career politicians willing to repay one favor for another.
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