Lexington Mayor Jim Gray jumped into the race against Republican Rep. Andy Barr on Tuesday, giving national Democrats their long-desired top recruit but also setting up a potentially expensive Democratic primary battle in Kentucky’s 6th District. Gray was a businessman who first won election as mayor of Kentucky's second largest city in 2010 by ousting an incumbent Democrat in a hard-fought nonpartisan contest. Lexington comprises nearly half this district's population, giving Gray a particularly prominent launching pad to run for the House. He is also personally wealthy and could potentially self-fund some. If Gray were to win, he would become the first openly gay Congress member elected in both Kentucky and the entire South itself.
Gray ran for Senate in 2016 against Republican incumbent Rand Paul, and while he lost to by a daunting 57-43, he significantly outpaced Hillary Clinton's landslide 63-33 defeat in Kentucky despite the Senate race garnering little national attention. Most importantly, Gray managed to beat Paul by a 52-48 margin in the territory that comprises the 6th District, proving he can win over the sorts of voters Democrats need to prevail in this ancestrally blue district, which favored Trump by an imposing 55-39. Democrats have often done better in the 6th in state-level races, but it's also harder to get voters to split their tickets in federal races, making Gray's performance in this area all the more impressive.
However, Gray won't have an easy path ahead of him, starting off with the primary. Retired Marine Lt. Col. Amy McGrath, whose service includes flying 89 combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, joined the primary over the summer with a well-polished and hard-hitting introductory video. That video quickly went viral nationally, and the first-time candidate raised an astonishing $723,000 in the third quarter to finish September with a hefty $552,000 in cash-on-hand. McGrath shows no sign thus far of bowing out of the race and reacted to Gray's entry into the race with a jab over being a "big city mayor," while she promised to "fight for people in every city, town, and county in this district."
One other Democratic primary candidate, state Sen. Reggie Thomas, said he was staying in the race, but Thomas has lagged far behind in fundraising and had only $78,000 in the bank after September. However, while former state Rep. Leslie Combs had been previously mentioned as a possible candidate, she announced her support for McGrath instead.
While primaries aren't always a bad thing and can help weed out bad candidates, Democrats would undoubtedly prefer to avoid having to spend countless dollars here, particularly if things get acrimonious. Barr himself will be able to stockpile his resources, and he'll be tough to dislodge in a district that leans decidedly to the right at the presidential level.