KENTUCKY — Known as "Mr. No" on Capitol Hill for his fierce opposition to large spending bills, Northern Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie's campaign has spent more than a million dollars in the 4th District Republican primary. This has been an effort to stave off his opponent Todd McMurtry, a lawyer known for his work on the Nick Sandmann case.

What You Need To Know


  • Several key primary races in Kentucky today, including 4th and 6th districts

  • Rep. Thomas Massie raises over $1 million in race against Todd McMurtry

  • 6th district has been held by both Democrats and Republicans

  • Charles Booker hopes to upset race against Amy Mcgrath for Senate

"It seemed like Massie was going to have a very difficult challenge particularly when he held up some legislation dealing with coronavirus and really seemed to upset the president," said Kyle Kondik, an American elections analyst at the University of Virginia. "Massie had even been previously running ads down in Florida to try to get the president’s attention to basically help him out." 

Kondik says McMurtry faces an uphill battle because usually only a handful of incumbents lose in their primary in a given year.

"Donald Trump won this district by about 35 points in 2016," said Kondik.

Another race to watch is Kentucky's 6th district. The seat, held by Republican Congressman Andy Barr since 2012, has been held by Democrats and Republicans.

"What you see for Democrats running in districts that are right of center, at least at the federal level, which Kentucky’s 6th is, you’ll see these candidates emphasizing more local trends, trying to find ways to attack the incumbent on local issues as opposed to trying to nationalize the race. What Republicans would try to do in a race like this is try to nationalize the Democratic candidate in order to remove any sort of local advantage that candidate might have," said Kondik.

A last-minute upset from state representative Charles Booker in the Democratic primary against retired fighter pilot Amy McGrath for a chance to compete against Kentucky's Senior Senator Mitch McConnell could dramatically shift Kentucky politics.

"If Booker is nominated in Kentucky, he’s not someone who is going to run as a moderate. That would be a good test of this idea that, hey maybe you need to just run someone who is a better fit for the moment and also is ideologically aggressive. I think that’s a difficult sell in Kentucky but then again I don’t know if running a milquetoast moderate candidate ever works," said Kondik.

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