The Huffington Post is now reporting that actress Ashley Judd is now taking steps to enter the race for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky currently held by Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Judd, even though she has not actually entered the race as of yet, has already been targeted by conservative front groups, who are trying to paint her as a hard-line liberal and a carpetbagger, which is very easy for them to do, since she is an opponent of mountaintop removal coal-mining and was one of President Barack Obama's most vocal supporters during his 2012 presidential campaign, additionally, she currently resides in Tennessee and would need to move to Kentucky in order to run for a U.S. Senate seat there.
Also, HuffPo has named Kentucky Secretary of State Allison Lundergan Grimes as a potential Democratic primary challenger to Judd. The possibility of a Judd-Lundergan Grimes primary, which is certainly not out of the question, would lead to an ideological fight within the Kentucky Democratic Party, as Judd is a progressive Democrat and Lundergan Grimes is a moderate Democrat. Despite concerns that Judd may be too liberal to win a statewide race in Kentucky, the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, the Democratic Party apparatus that supports Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate is reporting that their internal polling is showing McConnell to be more vulnerable to a Judd candidacy than they first thought.