'Heavy lifting, brother': Can Democrats recapture their mojo in Kentucky's 6th District?

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Six years ago, the race in the Lexington-based 6th Congressional District had the buzz of a presidential battleground state.

Millions of dollars poured onto the airwaves, attacks flung early and often, and there was a palpable sense that the incumbent Republican could actually fall.

Andy Barr did not go down — but his final margin over the exceptionally funded Amy McGrath amounted to a verifiable squeaker. One of the most aggressively contested House campaigns in the country in 2018 ended up decided by a field goal at 51% to 48%.

This year, Barr’s Democratic opponent is a former write-in candidate who has just a thousand dollars in his campaign account and is already down a campaign manager.

Kentucky’s 6th District is the furthest thing from a battleground. It’s not even on the radar of most national Democrats and even Kentucky Democrats acknowledge some delusion is necessary to swallow the long odds.

What happened?

The district fits neatly into a national trend of House districts becoming more partisan and less competitive, due to legislative redistricting, hardening national polarization of politics at all levels and a Democratic Party that has all but explicitly chosen to cede races to Republicans in order to conserve resources for smaller races.

“There’s going to have to be a real specific well-known name that can raise money to do it. And we’re not just getting that right now,” said Nema Brewer, a longtime Fayette County Democrat who is an organizer for KY120 United-AFT, a union that represents educators, state employees and school staff members.

Brewer and other Democrats say the state and local parties will instead focus their energy and resources on winnable legislative races in an attempt to pierce the GOP’s supermajority under the dome in Frankfort.

“You gotta start picking and choosing your battles right now. Because every one counts,” Brewer said. “We got to shore some things up; we got to focus on some local and our state.”

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