Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell won re-election to represent Kentucky for a sixth term on Tuesday, following one of the most expensive Senate campaigns in history.
The race, which was called by the Associated Press and other major news organizations only a couple minutes after polls closed in the west of the state at 6pm CT, was at points considered neck-and-neck. The Democratic challenger and Kentucky’s current secretary of state, Alison Lundergan Grimes, put up a strong fight against McConnell, a powerful incumbent with deep pockets.
At the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 369 hall in Louisville, where supporters had hoped to celebrate a Grimes win, the mood quickly turned somber: one minute, a few young employees were playing stickball while waiting for the party to start, and the next the hall was empty, as the few people who had arrived before the race was called went up to the war room to commiserate and watch the results of the statehouse races.
Local races broke in favor of Democrats often enough to give them hope that the lower chamber would remain out of Republican hands and prevent the passage of right-to-work laws.
The mood was similarly muted at the Grimes election party. Meanwhile, local television station WAVE reported that hardly anyone had arrived at McConnell’s party before the results were announced, but that the event got more energetic afterwards – especially when fellow Kentucky senator Rand Paul took the stage and said he hoped to see McConnell get promoted to Senate majority leader.
Grimes took the stage for her concession speech with a rueful look and as much emotion as she showed on the campaign trail, thanking her family, the other Democratic politicians who stumped for her, her staff and her supporters.
She said: “While tonight didn’t bring us the result that we had hoped for, this journey, the fight for you was worth it. I will continue to fight for the commonwealth of Kentucky each and everyday.” She did not mention McConnell by name or congratulate him from the stage.
In a statement, AFL-CIO Kentucky president Bill Londrigan said that they were proud of the campaign Grimes had run, adding that “she embodied the definition of a working family candidate”.
In his victory speech, after promising “no more campaign commercials” to a laughing audience, McConnell acknowledged Grimes’ achievements in some depth. “Secretary Grimes ran a spirited campaign,” he said. “And she earned my respect.” He suggested that people shouldn’t be dissuaded from running for office because of her loss. “I admire her willingness to step into the arena and fight as hard as she did” in a difficult campaign.
McConnell didn’t have many more olive branches to extend to Democrats after that, though he did say “just because we have a two-party system doesn’t mean we have to be in perpetual conflict. I think I’ve shown that to be true at critical times in the past.”
