Democratic Kentucky Senate candidate Amy McGrath has lost the support of Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a major blow to a campaign that already stood little chance of unseating Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
In July 2019, back when McGrath’s campaign first launched, journalists wishfully predicted that this would be a “blockbuster” election. McGrath, who trails McConnell by double digits, was supposed to be the real deal. Reporters and commentators alike drooled over her “incredible rollout” video. As it turns out, the same political reporters and commentators who assured us that McGrath had a real chance of defeating McConnell were wrong.
A real shocker, that.
On Thursday, Warren endorsed liberal Democratic Kentucky state Rep. Charles Booker, withdrawing her earlier informal support for McGrath.
“I’m proud to endorse him and join his fight to root out corruption, dismantle systemic racism, and make big, structural change,” said the Massachusetts senator.
Along with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Booker has also been endorsed by the Louisville Courier-Journal, which called McGrath’s campaign “unimaginative and uninspiring,” the Lexington Herald-Leader, and former Kentucky secretary of state Alison Lundergan Grimes.
.@Booker4KY is a lifelong Kentuckian who has seen how Mitch McConnell and Washington, D.C. have failed working families. I’m proud to endorse him and join his fight to root out corruption, dismantle systemic racism, and make big, structural change. pic.twitter.com/6gUocCcPn6
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) June 18, 2020
Earlier, however, Warren had said in 2019 following the launch of McGrath’s candidacy, “[Amy McGrath] is a real fighter for working families in Kentucky and across the country. She inspired us in 2018, and now she’s running for the U.S. Senate. Go Amy!”
She gave her endorsement, then took it away. Maybe we could call that “Warren-giving.”
.@AmyMcGrathKY is a real fighter for working families in Kentucky and across the country. She inspired us in 2018, and now she’s running for the U.S. Senate. Go Amy! https://t.co/RCggL4Vlax
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) July 9, 2019
As bad as this looks for Warren, it looks worse for McGrath, whose more than $30 million have not helped her move the needle at all against McConnell. In fact, a new survey commissioned by the liberal think tank Data for Progress shows McConnell trouncing McGrath in the general election by 53% to 33% (it also shows the senator defeating Booker 52% to 38%). That is a 20-point difference.
But what do you expect from a campaign that stumbled so badly from the get-go?
In the first 48 hours of McGrath’s candidacy, she went from saying she would have voted “nay” on the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, to claiming she actually would have voted “yea,” to flip-flopping on the flip-flop to say she would have voted “nay.”
She also bombed in a CNN interview when she was asked to explain what she meant when she said in 2017 of the election of President Trump, “The only feeling I can describe that’s any close to it was the feeling I had after 9/11.” McGrath’s rollout, which was anything but “incredible,” was so bad her handlers abruptly canceled a scheduled interview with MSNBC, of all places, in the very first week of her campaign.
Yet we were told in 2019 by supposedly in-the-know, professional journalists that McGrath’s campaign rollout, particularly her announcement video, “was incredibly powerful.”
“What’s your website?” MSNBC’s Mike Barnicle asked the Democratic Senate candidate during an interview promoting her candidacy. “Because people who saw that commercial are going to want to donate to you. What’s your website?”
NBC News even published a conveniently timed hit piece on the eve of McGrath’s campaign announcement, revealing McConnell’s great-great-grandfathers owned slaves.
Alas, all that work for nothing.
Watching the slow and steady implosion of the McGrath campaign, after watching members of the press try so hard to give it an initial boost, is like watching a sadder, more contained version of Betomania. You hate to see it.
