President Donald Trump on Friday endorsed Rep. Andy Barr (R-Kentucky) to succeed Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, who is not running for reelection after more than four decades in the Senate.
Trump’s endorsement upends a competitive Senate contest weeks ahead of the May 19 primary.
Barr was expected to face Daniel Cameron, a former Kentucky attorney general, and Nate Morris, a waste management company founder. Morris said Friday that he would leave the race at Trump’s request to serve as an ambassador.
“Nate is Oxford educated, tough as nails, LOVES our Great Nation, and will represent the United States very well, overseas, or otherwise,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, without specifying the role he had asked Morris to fill.
After Morris endorsed Barr, Cameron’s campaign said he would remain in the race.
Prominent Trump allies had lined up behind Morris, a friend of Vice President JD Vance. Morris said the vice president called him last year and encouraged him to jump into the Senate race, saying that “we’re going to need somebody in that seat that’s not going to stab our president in the back.”
Elon Musk, the billionaire tech CEO who has become a major force in GOP politics, rocked the primary by giving $10 million in January to a super PAC backing Morris after meeting with him. Before he was killed in September, conservative activist Charlie Kirk also endorsed Morris.
But Morris continued to trail his GOP rivals in polls despite the support.
Barr, Cameron and Morris are all former McConnell interns, but they have kept their distance from him in the primary, underscoring how parts of the GOP base have soured on the towering conservative figure. McConnell served as the Republican Senate leader for 18 years and stepped down from that post after the 2024 election, though he is still in the Senate serving out the final two years of his term.
Cameron’s general consultant, Brandon Moody, responded to Trump’s endorsement by suggesting that Barr was McConnell’s preferred candidate.
“Congrats to Mitch McConnell for getting his guy,” Moody said in a statement.
Cameron, a former legal counsel for McConnell who was once considered his protégé, put out a video rebuking McConnell for opposing some of Trump’s Cabinet picks.
Morris stood out for his antipathy toward McConnell.
He introduced himself to voters with an ad that showed a cardboard cutout of McConnell in the trash — an approach that rankled some Republicans in the state. Morris was roundly booed last year at an annual Kentucky political picnic, where he declared that he would “trash Mitch McConnell’s legacy.”
Morris’s attacks on McConnell helped align him with prominent MAGA figures who flocked to his cause.
The winner of the Republican primary is likely to succeed McConnell in the Senate. Though Kentucky has elected a number of Democratic governors, voters there have not elected a Democratic senator since 1992.
Trump praised Barr on social media for his willingness to get rid of the filibuster, the long-standing Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation.
Trump has urged Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) to do away with the filibuster to pass the Save America Act, which would require Americans to prove their citizenship with a birth certificate or a passport when they register to vote, and to show photo identification when voting. Thune and other Republicans have resisted.
“Andy Barr is a Strong Supporter of TERMINATING THE FILIBUSTER, before the Democrats do it (which they will, on Day One, if they get control of the U.S. Senate!),” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He will do everything in his power to get it done. It is desperately needed by the Republican Party to pass the SAVE AMERICA ACT, and all other things necessary for a strong and brilliant Country!”
Barr, who was the Kentucky chairman of Trump’s 2024 campaign, said in a statement after the president’s endorsement that he would “stand with President Trump 100%.”
The post Trump endorses Andy Barr in race to succeed Mitch McConnell appeared first on Washington Post.
