The 44-year-old Kentucky Democrat entered politics as a first-time candidate two years ago after a 20-year career as a Marine. McGrath was the first woman to fly an F-18 in combat, and flew more than 85 combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“He never wrote back,” McGrath recalled. “I’ve often wondered, how many other people did Mitch McConnell never take the time to write back, or even think about?”
In the general election, she proved to be a strong fundraiser, bringing in $8.5 million and outpacing the GOP incumbent, Rep. Andy Barr.
But Barr portrayed McGrath as too far left for the deep-red, Lexington-based 6th District — and did so using McGrath’s own words.
His campaign aired television ads using a recording of McGrath, at a Massachusetts fundraiser, saying, “I am further left, I am more progressive, than anyone in the state of Kentucky.”
Now, McGrath faces an even more daunting challenge: trying to unseat McConnell in a state President Donald Trump won by 30 points in 2016.
Democrats last year learned how hard it is to buck the trend of Senate races mirroring their states’ presidential results. Three Democratic incumbents — North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp, Indiana’s Joe Donnelly and Missouri’s Claire McCaskill — all lost in states Trump had won by double digits.
McConnell, meanwhile, has proven tough to beat. In 2014, he bested Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes, a highly touted and well-funded opponent, by more than 15 percentage points.
McGrath is seeking to appeal to conservatives by exploiting differences between McConnell and Trump.
“Everything that’s wrong in Washington had to start someplace. How did it come to this, that even within our own families, we can’t talk to each other about the leaders of our country anymore without anger and blame?” McGrath asks in her launch video.
“Well, it started with this man,” she says, “who was elected a lifetime ago, and who has, bit by bit, year by year, turned Washington into something we all despise — where dysfunction and chaos are political weapons.”
Source : CNN