Trump-backed Andy Barr wins GOP nomination for Mitch McConnell’s Senate seat in Kentucky

Rep. Andy Barr, riding an endorsement from President Donald Trump, has won the Republican primary in the race for retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell’s seat in Kentucky, NBC News projects.

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Barr, a seven-term congressman, prevailed over former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron and other, lesser-known GOP candidates.

He will be a heavy general election favorite against Democratic nominee Charles Booker, who previously ran for Senate and was competing against another former Democratic Senate nominee, Amy McGrath. The state has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since it awarded Wendell Ford a fourth and final term in 1992.

Trump waded into the race this month when he backed Barr and urged Nate Morris, a businessman with strong ties to his MAGA movement, to end his campaign for the GOP nomination and instead accept an ambassadorship. Morris agreed and quickly got behind Barr.

Though Morris is friends with Vice President JD Vance and received an endorsement from Charlie Kirk, the influential conservative activist, before he was assassinated last year, he had not shown enough growth in polls to win Trump’s support.

“Just like the President said at his Northern Kentucky rally in March, I’ve been with him all the way and I always will be,” Barr said in a statement after he clinched Trump’s endorsement. “As our next Senator, I’ll stand with President Trump 100% to deliver for Kentucky and to keep Making America Great Again.”

Morris had relentlessly attacked Barr and Cameron as extensions of the McConnell establishment — a potential tension point given McConnell’s split with Trump — and his departure from the race eased Barr’s path.

“President Trump makes his pick for Kentucky Senate,” a narrator said in an ad that Barr’s campaign rushed to air, quoting from Trump’s social media post endorsing Barr: “Andy Barr is a proven winner. ... He’ll cut taxes, unleash American energy dominance, and secure the border.”

For Cameron, once seen as a rising national star, the primary loss is his second statewide defeat in less than three years. He lost to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear in Beshear’s 2023 re-election bid.