Amy McGrath to challenge Mitch McConnell in run for U.S. Senate

LOUISVILLE, Ky (WDRB) -- Amy McGrath is running for Senate.

McGrath announced Tuesday morning on social media that she will challenge Mitch McConnell.

McGrath's decision to enter the race represents a rare victory for Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, who has struggled to persuade other top-tier candidates to take on incumbent Republicans with control of the Senate at stake.

The former Marine pilot lost in a close race last year to Andy Barr for Kentucky's 6th Congressional District.

She released a video Tuesday, which she narrates titled "The Letter." In a release, McGrath tells the story of how she wrote a letter to then first-term Sen. Mitch McConnell telling him about her dream to fly fighter jets in combat. McGrath asked McConnell to overturn the Combat Exclusion Law banning women from combat. “He never wrote back,” says McGrath in the video.

Here is a transcript of "The Letter."

I was 13 years old, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life.

I sat at this table. And I wrote a letter. To my senator.

Telling him I wanted to fly fighter jets in combat.

To fight for my country. And that women should be able to do that.

He never wrote back.

I'm Amy McGrath and I’ve often wondered how many other people did Mitch McConnell never take the time to write back.

Or even think about.

A second-generation steel worker who found out his mill is shutting down, leaving no jobs behind.

A woman suffering from diabetes who fears losing her health care and coverage for her pre-existing condition.

A coal miner forced to retire by black lung disease who's looking for someone to offer more than words

A student who can only afford college as long as she can get her federal loans. And has no idea how she’ll pay off the debt.

Everything that’s wrong in Washington had to start someplace.

How did it come to this?

That even within our own families, we can’t talk to each other about the leaders of our country anymore without anger and blame.

Well, it started with this man, who was elected a lifetime ago. And who has, bit by bit, year by year, turned Washington into something we all despise.

Where dysfunction and chaos are political weapons.

Where budgets and health care and the Supreme Court are held hostage.

A place where ideals go to die.

I’m running for Senate because it shouldn’t be like this.

I learned as a daughter, a mom, a Marine and a fighter pilot that the mission can never be forgotten.

That protecting our Democracy requires courage.

That our freedoms are never assured.

And the best way to lift someone up is a job.

The challenge of today is inside of each of us.

How do we reconcile our belief in basic human decency — with our anger at those who block progress at all costs?

There is a path to resetting our country’s moral compass.

Where each of us is heard.

And we can become, once again, the moral and economic leader of a world in disarray.

But to do that — we have to win this.

Lt. Colonel Amy McGrath (Ret.) served 20 years in the U.S. Marines and became the first woman in the Marine Corps to fly a combat mission in an F/A-18 fighter jet. She flew 89 combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, before retiring and moving back home to Kentucky to raise her family with her husband Erik.