Rand Paul claims top Democrat could beat McConnell in Kentucky
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., tells 'The Ingraham Angle' Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's platform has aggravated his constituency.
Senate Homeland Security Committee member Rand Paul argues Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's continued support for Ukraine aid and his role in spearheading the failed border bill have angered Kentucky voters at home and could cost him his job.
Paul claimed McConnell's penchant for siding with the "big government" wing of the Senate Republican caucus – which he said routinely sides with Democrats – would lead voters in his red-leaning state to eschew party allegiance and dump the seven-term senator.
In response to McConnell telling Politico there has always been a small group of critics within his Republican ranks after the border deal fell apart, Paul said the GOP leader's critics may instead be the actual majority.
"[Mitch is] completely out of touch with Kentucky Republicans, with conservative Republicans; advocating for all this money to go to Ukraine – We're not for that, nobody in Kentucky's for that," Paul said on "The Ingraham Angle."
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"His approval ratings in Kentucky are almost below zero. They are the lowest of any elected official in the United States. He is working with Biden and Schumer to funnel your money to Ukraine, but he's not working with conservatives, so he is in the minority of his caucus."
Host Laura Ingraham then posed a blunt question to Paul, asking whether Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear – who won re-election in 2023, and is the son of popular former Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear – could defeat the four-decade Republican icon in his red-leaning state.
"If Governor Beshear ran for his Senate seat and the election were held tomorrow, who would win?" she asked.
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"Beshear," Paul replied, frowning.
While Kentucky has been a reliable state for Republicans at the presidential level since George W. Bush, and in the Senate for slightly longer, it has only elected two Republican governors since Louie B. Nunn in 1967.
McConnell won his last two re-election contests by an average of 17 points. He is also the longest-serving Senate party leader of any stripe; taking up the role upon the 2007 retirement of Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
On the issue of the Lankford-Sinema-Murphy border legislation, McConnell had been supportive of its negotiations for months, before ultimately admitting this week it had become a doomed proposition.
"It's been made pretty clear to us by the speaker that it will not become law," McConnell recently said, which led Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. to claim McConnell and Republicans are "quaking at the knees in fear of Donald Trump."
Rand Paul told Fox News the border bill had become a "ruse" and that the legislation was in actuality a "bone… thrown to conservatives."'
"They were always worried that if conservatives got wind that it was a ruse, that it wasn't real border reform… it would be destroyed. So the game all along was to keep this in secret from us, but also secret from anybody that might look at it [or] might criticize it," he said, blaming Senate Republican leadership for the dynamic.