Former state Rep. Charles Booker and former fighter pilot Amy McGrath duked it out once more in a rematch for the Democratic nomination for the Kentucky U.S. Senate on Tuesday night. They were joined by Louisville horse trainer Dale Romans, a political newcomer, and state Rep. Pamela Stevenson, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel.
This time the Senate seat is wide open with the impending retirement of longtime U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, making the Republican primary just as heated. The night before, the three top GOP challengers took to the debate stage in Louisville where they argued over who could best support President Donald Trump’s agenda.
The top four Democratic candidates agreed Trump’s policies have proven disastrous during his first year as president in his second term. They instead sought to distinguish themselves on whether they would abolish or reform immigration enforcement, argued over U.S. aid to Israel and declared why they had the best chance of winning a general election as a Democrat. The last time Kentucky elected a Democratic senator was in 1992.
At the debate hosted by Spectrum News 1, candidates largely agreed that Trump shouldn’t have entered another military conflict in the Middle East, that the affordability crisis has worsened and that the president’s controversial voting overhaul bill, the SAVE America Act, is a distraction.
Booker said Kentuckians are done with the “Mitch McConnell status quo” and are ready for change.
“I'm here to tell you because of the work we've done together from the hood to the holler, we are uniquely positioned to not only win this race, but transform our future,” Booker said.
McGrath said Trump “unilaterally” started the war in Iran and does not believe claims the country posed an imminent threat. She said her experience serving in the Middle East informs her beliefs that Trump “doesn't know what he's doing, and I would not be funding it.”
Romans said he would immediately repeal Trump’s giant tax and spending package, the One Big Beautiful Bill, saying he would take funding that was “pushed toward [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and taken away from Medicare and Medicaid, and put it back where it belongs.”
Stevenson said the SAVE Act is a “distraction” for the American people, arguing that “we have had races and votes in this country for over 200 years” and don’t need massive overhauls of the system that could disenfranchise voters.
Trump won Kentucky by a 30 percentage point margin in the 2024 election, but McGrath said she felt that Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s win in 2023 showed there is hope for a liberal to win statewide.
“We have a tremendous, very popular Democratic governor here who won in an off-cycle, very similar electorate to this midterm coming up,” McGrath said.
Electability was a major talking point Tuesday night with two candidates that have previously lost a Kentucky Senate state once again asking voters to put their trust in them.
Booker said he believed the time had come for his campaign and Kentuckians needed someone who would join them on the “front line.”
“It's about who has a vision to meet the moment. I am not a politician who just came out of nowhere trying to praise Donald Trump in one moment and now criticize him in another,” Booker said, pointing to ads and statements McGrath made during her campaign against McConnell in 2020. “I have been steadfast to call out the truth to fight for Kentucky, and that's why the people of Kentucky are standing with me.”
McGrath didn’t say how she would run her new campaign differently either, but said she believed there was a “unique opportunity” with an open seat and that she can build a broad coalition.
While Stevenson argued her main selling point is her previous experience as a lawmaker, Romans said he would run — and legislate — from the middle.
“Enough of the politics, enough of the bitter back-and-forth, bickering with each other,” Romans said. “We need someone that's in the center. We need to start governing from the center.”
How Democratic candidates say they would deal with ICE
While the candidates largely agreed that Trump’s policies have harmed the country, they disagreed on how to handle U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after immigration officers killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
Booker and Stevenson were unequivocal in saying ICE needs to be abolished.
“You can't reform what happened to Alex Pretti, you can't reform that type of brutality,” Booker said. “But we also have to do the work of lifting up a true immigration system that is rooted in humanity, ending the deportation industrial complex.”
McGrath took a more moderate stance, saying the agency can and should be reformed.
“The leaders need to be fired, and I have a plan to actually reform ICE that makes sense,” McGrath said. “Any law enforcement agency must respect the basic constitutional rights of any human being here in the United States.”
The agency, along with the entire Department of Homeland Security, had its funding cut off in an ongoing government shutdown while Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill negotiate restrictions on immigration enforcement that Democrats say has gotten out of control in American cities.
But Romans said the partial shutdown needs to end now as airports face massive delays and other non-border-related agencies confront disruptions.
“You're also shutting down the Coast Guard, you're shutting down cyber security, and you're shutting down TSA, and you shouldn't hold people's paychecks hostage for a political dispute,” Romans said.
Democratic candidates skirmish over American aid to Israel
The Democratic Senate hopefuls also argued over American aid to Israel, with both Booker and Stevenson saying the country should not fund what they called the genocide of Palestinians.
As the US-Israeli war in Iran wages on, settler attacks against Palestinians have continued, and over the weekend Israeli forces opened fire on a West Bank family, killing four. The Palestinian death toll has surpassed 70,000 since the Israel-Hamas war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, after Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 hostages on Oct 7, 2023.
McGrath said she believes Israel has a right to defend itself but that U.S. aid is conditional.
“This is already in law: the United States should not be providing weapons to any country that uses it against U.S. law, that uses those weapons against civilians as a tactic,” McGrath said.
After Booker pledged he would not take money from the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, Romans scoffed, saying that’s easy to say when the group isn’t exactly banging down his door.
“It's easy to stand up here and point your finger at us. Nobody's gotten any money from AIPAC. They want to give me something, I'll take it, but I'll tell you what. I can't be bought just because they contribute to my campaign,” Romans said.
McGrath at first appeared to agree with Romans, but when asked for clarification from moderator Mario Anderson, she said she would not accept AIPAC money.
McGrath called for the end of dark money contributions — with several of her opponents agreeing. Dark money is a term for political funds whose donors don’t need to be publicly disclosed. She also called for an end to gerrymandering and demanded term limits and a ban on stock-trading for sitting members of Congress.
“We have to end dark money. It is corroding our democracy. It is a cancer that hurts all of us. Elon Musk just dropped $10 million into this U.S. Senate race to buy the person that he wants. He's probably never even set foot here in Kentucky. That is wrong,” McGrath said. “These things are no-brainers. We can get it done.”
