Rand Paul easily secured a third term in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday night, quashing Democratic challenger Charles Booker, who was underfunded and hamstrung by national headwinds facing his party.
The Associated Press called the race at 7:14 p.m. EST.
“Congratulations to Senator Rand Paul on his re-election victory tonight in Kentucky. As one of our leading advocates for liberty, Kentucky families know Rand will fight for them in Washington I look forward to continuing to serve alongside Rand in the Senate,” said Sen. Rick Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in a statement.
The Kentucky Republican, who carries a libertarian brand of conservatism, positioned his campaign lamenting Democratic Party spending, hammering calls to “defund” law enforcement and pledging to probe the federal government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Contrary from previous Democratic candidates in the commonwealth, Booker ran as an unabashed progressive, betting that bold ideas would attract more disengaged people to participate.
But Paul largely ignored Booker, even refusing to meet him on a debate stage for the campaign’s duration.
Booker, the first Black nominee for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, also failed to attract the attention of national Democrats, who focused their time and resources on a slate of other battlegrounds in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada, which will determine control of the 50-50 Senate and whether Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell returns as majority leader.
If Republicans seize control of the upper chamber, Paul is poised to lead a Senate health committee in which he will hold sweeping power to investigate the Biden administration’s handling of the pandemic.
He has already said he would subpoena troves of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s documents and promised to “make sure that Fauci’s propaganda never guides another terrible policy ever again.”
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