Apparently, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was a moderate Republican in the 1980s and 1990s.
It is only until when Bill Frist left the Senate in 2006, when McConnell was elevated to Senate GOP Leader, in the Bush-Obama era, he became more partisan.
McConnell, 77, is up for reelection in 2020. He is running again.
He won the Senate seat in 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002, 2008 and 2014.
Why does McConnell get reelected so easily and can Ky. Democrats do about it?
For one thing, he’s the Senate leader which is a very powerful position. Folks in Kentucky like having one of their Senators in charge of the Senate. Seeing that the good voters of KY are largely aligned with McConnell’s politics, what possibly reason could they have to vote him out?
I think this is McConnell’s last term anyway…he will be 78 next year.
I’m not so sure that it will be that easy and from what I’ve heard his unfavorable ratings in KY have been going up.
He does bring home some gravy to the state and that always help. The state leans quite red, so most of what he has to worry about is a primary challenge.
There is considerable value to having a powerful local politician - especially if his views are not vastly different from your own.
There has been lots of scholarly work analyzing the incumbent advantage effect.
This is one article that speaks to that effect. Once a Senator is elected, it is very likely that they will remain in office.
Add to that McConnell’s leadership role and he will get a great deal of campaign money and PAC and party support from outside of Kentucky. That advantage aside, he’s in a state that leans Republican. So the hurdles for a primary challenge are great, and the hurdles for a Democratic challenger are even greater.
‘He’s an asshole but he’s our asshole’ Also, the challenger in 2014 ran a horrible campaign, refusing to admit that she voted for Barack Obama.
The only majority leader to get voted out recently was Tom Daschle in blood red South Dakota and that was unprecedented as George W Bush went there to campaign against him.
Not only that, Daschle has been a GOP target since the Clinton-Gore-Gephardt days.
John Thune ran against former Sen. Tim Johnson in 2002, and the GOP campaign strategist Karl Rove recruited Thune to run in '04 against Daschle and he won that seat.
Ironically, I think once McConnell leaves, John Thune may be the next GOP Senate leader.
Kentucky has a Cook PVI of R+15. That’s not just safe; that’s well beyond safe. By comparison, Texas is ‘only’ R+8, but Beto still couldn’t beat Cruz.
What can Dems do about it? Not a damned thing. The only way McConnell is going to lose is if a primary challenger can convince Kentucky Republicans that Mitch isn’t sufficiently conservative.
And that’s why Mitch rammed the Kavanaugh nomination through. In earlier days, he would have advised Trump to pull the nomination and get another judge who is just as right wing confirmed. The 2018 Senate map was brutal for the Dems and McConnell knew that the House was already lost.
As a democrat, I wish our leadership was as competent and efficient as McConnell.
However I don’t think GOP voters really appreciate what he does. His negatives are really high among his own party.
Having said that, in the south anyone with an R next to their name can win and usually does.