Lexington Mayor Jim Gray will be voting Tuesday morning, in hopes of winning the Democratic party’s nomination for a U.S. Senate seat. Rand Paul from the start.
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Pointing to his potential financial strength – and Paul’s weakness – and increased voter turnout in a presidential year, Gray’s campaign said 2016 is “naturally” more favorable to him than Democrats who ran unsuccessfully in 2010 against Paul and 2014 against Sen.
Paul, a Bowling Green ophthalmologist, will face the victor of a six-way race for the Democratic nomination that included Lexington Mayor Jim Gray. Bernie Sanders, and Ron Leach, who served multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bob Mattingly, 81, said he voted for Gray because of his business experience. He also says he helped sponsor more than 100 bills and offered more than 300 amendments to bills during his term.
Paul championed efforts to curtail the federal government’s surveillance powers.
Kentucky Democrats have not won a U.S. Senate race since 1992.
“In fact, I consider myself to be a great defender of Kentucky against Pres. Obama and against Hillary Clinton’s war against our state”, said Paul in an interview. “We can get there”, he said.
Gray’s campaign is groundbreaking for another reason: he is an openly gay candidate in a state where Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis became a symbol of opposition to same-sex marriages. This is my assessment after observing the current political climate in Kentucky that overwhelming voted for Donald Trump in the Presidential primary earlier this Spring and current Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin’s stunning victory in last Fall’s gubernatorial election. The businessman has raised almost $1.9 million since entering the Senate race in late January, bolstered by $1 million he loaned his campaign, according to his campaign-finance report. He has focused much of his campaign on the economy.
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“What I have seen is that people care about performance and they care about results”, he said. Gray had almost $1.1 million cash on hand, putting him only slightly behind Paul, who had almost $1.4 million on hand.
