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Trump Ally Andy Barr Wins Kentucky Senate Republican Primary

WASHINGTON – Rep. Andy Barr is projected to win Tuesday’s Senate Republican primary in Kentucky, putting him on a glide path to succeed retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell in November.

Barr, who earned President Donald Trump’s endorsement, coasted to victory against his opponent, former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron. MAGA businessman Nate Morris was also in the race at one point, but Trump persuaded him to drop out.

Having Trump’s support in this Republican primary was key, as the president won this state by 30 percentage points in the 2024 election.

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Barr, a seven-term congressman, has long stood by the president. He voted against both articles of impeachment against Trump in 2019, and in January 2021, he voted against Trump’s second impeachment. The Kentucky Republican also defended the president amid his Ukraine scandal, when in 2019, he pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden ahead of the U.S. election.

That request wasn’t blatant corruption, Barr said at the time, but “routine diplomacy.”

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During his Senate campaign, he lavished Trump with praise and attacked “woke liberals.”

“It’s not a sin to be white,” Barr says in a February campaign ad. “It’s not against the law to be male. And it shouldn’t be disqualifying to be a Christian.”

The Kentucky Republican will likely face off against Democrat Charles Booker in November. Booker, who was the leading Democratic candidate in the polls ahead of Tuesday, previously served a term in the state House and was the state’s youngest Black state lawmaker.