State Senator Morgan McGarvey wins Democratic primary for open Louisville U.S. House seat

♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor

LOUISVILLE (CFP) – The fall contest for U.S. Senate in Kentucky will be a showdown between Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul and Democratic challenger Charles Booker, who both easily won their primaries Tuesday.

Paul and Booker in fall faceoff for U.S. Senate race

In the 3rd U.S. House District in metro Louisville, where Democratic U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth is retiring, State Senator Morgan McGarvey defeated State Rep. Attica Scott for the Democratic nomination in the state’s only Democratic-leaning district.

He will face either Republican Rhonda Palazzo, a Louisville real estate agent and MAGA activist, or Stuart Ray, a Louisville steel company executive, who were neck-and-neck in the GOP primary.

None of Kentucky’s other five House Republicans faced a significant primary challenge Tuesday and will be favored to keep their seats in the fall.

In the Senate race, Paul, from Bowling Green, easily defeated five little-known Republican challengers in his bid for a third term, while Booker dominated a four-candidate Democratic field.

Booker, a former state representative from Louisville, broke onto the political scene in 2020 when he when he nearly upset Amy McGrath, the anointed candidate of the Democratic establishment, in the state’s U.S. Senate primary. She was later crushed by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

Booker launched his uphill run against Paul in July 2021 and opted to stay in the race rather than switching to the metro Louisville U.S. House seat when Yarmuth retired.

Given Kentucky’s Republican lean, Paul is a heavy favorite in the fall. But Booker has been highlighting some of Paul’s idiosyncratic stands in Congress – most recently, his decision to single-handedly block aid to Ukraine — to argue that he’s out of touch.

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