FANCY FARM, Ky. – Just how MAGA is Kentucky? More pertinently, how MAGA are Kentucky Republicans? And most proximately, how MAGA are the people who will vote in the state’s May 2026 Republican primary for U.S. senator?
Senate candidate Nate Morris may provide the answer to the last question, at least. The wealthy Lexington businessman says he “supports Donald Trump 100% of the time.” He’s trying to be Kentucky’s version of the president, with a candidacy based on outrage – and rhetoric that was once deemed outrageous but Trump has made routine.
At Saturday’s Fancy Farm Picnic, Morris’ main target was the man he wants to succeed, Mitch McConnell, and his most personal attack sounded like one Trump made on the senator earlier this year.
Saying he would “trash Mitch McConnell’s legacy,” Morris said that goal “is pissing off a lot of people, but I have a serious question — who here can honestly tell me that it’s a good thing to have a senior citizen who freezes on national television during his press conferences as our U.S. senator? It seems to me, maybe just maybe, that Mitch’s time to leave the Senate was a long time ago.” After loud boos from the crowd, Morris mentioned former president Joe Biden and asked, “Why is it you all get so defensive when I talk about a man who’s older than Biden, just as mentally compromised and holds the same positions on Biden on amnesty, Ukraine funding and his hatred for Trump?”
Plain talk and cutting rhetoric are expected at Fancy Farm, but those lines didn’t seem to set well with most of the audience in and around the St. Jerome Church pavilion. They had repeatedly cheered and applauded McConnell, 83, who left before the speeches by Morris and his main opponents, 6th District U.S. Rep. Andy Barr and former state attorney general Daniel Cameron.
Earlier, at the Graves County Republican breakfast before McConnell arrived, Morris was more polite and diplomatic. He said he was “very, very disappointed” in the senator’s votes against three Trump nominees.
“I know in this room that makes some of you all uncomfortable,” he said, “but as an outsider and a disrupter, my job is not to make people comfortable, it’s to get results, and to bring something totally different. In Mitch McConnell I saw amnesty I saw blank checks to Ukraine, I saw somebody who wasn’t standing with the president, and I saw two guys who if they were to get that spot they would be more of the same. Both these guys are puppets for Mitch McConnell, no different.”
The night before, in his first campaign speech before an unmanaged audience, Morris dominated the smaller room at the Marshall County Republican dinner – until he started ragging on McConnell. That brought an interjection from Frank Amaro, the Todd County GOP chairman and 1st Congressional District vice chairman:
“Mitch is not running. What are you running on?”
Morris said Barr or Cameron “would be Mitch 2.0,” judging from who supports them – then mentioned his main platform plank, a “full moratorium” on immigration until all illegal immigrants are deported. The impracticality of that was conceded by state Rep. John Hogsdon of Fisherville, who manned Morris’ merch-and-signup table. He told me, “It’s like saying we want to cure cancer.” In other words, as MAGA folks have often said of Trump, don’t take him literally.
In a state Trump won by 30 points, Morris may think he can say the sorts of things that only Trump has been able to get away with – and capitalize on McConnell’s unpopularity among Republicans. Caldwell County Chairman Steve Meadows, a banker who hasn’t picked a candidate, told me the party needs “a new direction,” away from McConnell, but he said Amaro made a good point by challenging Morris.
Folks like Meadows and Amaro once led local opinion that shaped primary votes. Now voters seem more guided by partisan media sources such as Fox News, the Daily Signal and Breitbart, which is promoting Morris. But some such sources have raised questions about Morris’ business record, which he needs to answer.
Morris, Cameron and Barr all want the president’s endorsement, which likely would decide the primary.
Morris’ full-MAGA approach will appeal to Trump’s ego, and Morris counts Vice President JD Vance and Donald Trump Jr. in his corner. But the president hates to endorse losers or take unnecessary risks, and thus seems unlikely to make a pick unless he thinks he can get credit for the win. That won’t keep the candidates from sucking up to him, and if he keeps acting like a dictator, that could backfire on Republicans before the Jan. 9 filing deadline. Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear says he won’t run, but he keeps getting asked. If not, he should find a good alternative. That might look presidential.