LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Bowling Green physician Rand Paul has won a third term representing Kentucky in the U.S. Senate.
The Associated Press called the race at 7:14 p.m. with 7% of the votes counted. As of 7:30 p.m., Paul had 56.0% of the votes.
Louisville resident Charles Booker, a former state legislator, faced long odds in trying to become the first Democrat Kentuckians would send to the Senate in 30 years. The GOP came to dominate Kentucky politics for federal elections decades ago, preceding its takeover of the Kentucky legislature in the 2016 cycle.
Booker was also overmatched in fundraising against Paul.
Paul rode the Tea Party wave of 2010 to office and is known for his libertarian brand of Republicanism. He is a fierce critic of federal spending and has sometimes been one of the few senators to object to popular items such as aid for Ukraine and funding the Sept. 11 Victims Compensation Fund.
In the past, Paul has been a vocal supporter of term limits for Congress people. Had legislation he supported been successful, Paul wouldn’t have been able to run a fourth term.
He rationalized his run for another six-year stay in the Senate by saying that it would be unfair to hold himself to term limits if they do not apply to other senators.
“I still do support the idea that they would be limited but they would have to be limited for everyone,” Paul told Spectrum News while on the campaign trail in Lexington last month. “You can’t have term limits for some and not for others.”
An ophthalmologist, Paul has been a fierce critic of federal coronavirus policies and of Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases. If Republicans retake the Senate, Paul could become chairman of the health committee, a perch he could use to investigate Fauci, whom Paul has accused of contributing to COVID-19’s creation by funding research in Wuhan, China, the Washington Post reported this month.
"As one of our leading advocates for liberty, Kentucky families know Rand will fight for them in Washington," said Florida Sen. Rick Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Booker, a Black former state legislator from predominantly African-American west Louisville, used his “from the ‘hood to the holler” rhetoric in hopes of building a coalition of working people across Kentucky’s urban-rural divide. He was trying to become Kentucky's first Black senator.
Booker burst onto the scene in 2020 when his upstart campaign energized Democrats who were hoping for a more direct confrontation with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky’s senior senator. Booker came just short of besting Amy McGrath, who toed a more moderate line, in the Democratic primary. McConnell trounced McGrath in the general election.
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