Representative Andy Barr, a conservative Republican who earned the endorsement of President Trump in a hotly contested primary to succeed retiring Senator Mitch McConnell, won the Republican nomination for Senate in Kentucky on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.
Despite the fact that Kentucky has a Democratic governor in Andy Beshear, the Senate seat is viewed as safely Republican.
Mr. Barr’s victory over Daniel Cameron, the former Republican attorney general of the state who was long seen as a protégé of Mr. McConnell, amounts to a capstone to Mr. McConnell’s decades-long dominance in Kentucky politics.
Mr. Barr represents Kentucky’s Sixth Congressional District, which includes the capital, Lexington. He courted Mr. Trump’s endorsement from the moment he entered the primary. In his two-minute video announcing his candidacy, he made no mention of Mr. McConnell but brought up Mr. Trump four times.
His path to earning Mr. Trump’s blessing, as well as taking a clear lead in the primary, was not a forgone conclusion. For months, the primary was a tight three-way battle between Mr. Barr, Mr. Cameron and Nate Morris, a wealthy businessman with ties to Elon Musk, Vice President JD Vance and Donald Trump Jr.
Mr. Morris, a late entrant in the race, aimed to flood the zone with ads and commercials. An outside group backing him spent nearly $15 million on a paid media campaign, but it appeared to make little difference in polling, with either Mr. Barr or Mr. Cameron maintaining slight leads and Mr. Morris consistently running third.
Less than three weeks ago, Mr. Trump met with Mr. Morris and asked him to leave the race, offering Mr. Morris a to-be-determined ambassadorship in his administration. Mr. Morris withdrew from the race the following day and endorsed Mr. Barr, though Mr. Morris’s name remained on the ballot.
Mr. Barr celebrated the Trump endorsement with a day of campaigning at the Kentucky Derby, telling local reporters that his candidacy was vital for Republicans to maintain control of the Senate.
The Republican primary was expected to revolve around the two party titans — Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell — whose approval among conservatives has sharply diverged. But Mr. McConnell, an omnipresent force in Republican politics for 40 years, was largely an afterthought in the race to succeed him. None of the candidates sought out his endorsement, and his name was rarely invoked on the campaign trail.
Mr. Barr has referred to the retiring senator with reverence on occasion, telling The Lexington Herald-Leader that Mr. McConnell “has left a lasting impact on our commonwealth and our country, for which we are grateful.”
In his closing message, Mr. Barr pitched his long experience in Congress as vital to helping Kentucky retain its voice in the upper chamber, a voice long projected by Mr. McConnell. He sought to unite Republicans in Kentucky, which is home to its share of maverick leaders including Representative Thomas Massie and Senator Rand Paul.
“There’s a lot of different flavors of Republicans in Kentucky. That is a good thing,” Mr. Barr said during a campaign event in eastern Jefferson County. “We have Rand Paul Republicans. We have Thomas Massie Republicans. We have Ed Gallrein Republicans. We have Mitch McConnell Republicans. We have MAGA Republicans.”
Nick Corasaniti is a Times reporter covering national politics, with a focus on voting and elections.
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