Pro-Trump? Anti-Trump? Attack ads cause whiplash on where Amy McGrath stands.

Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)

Jun. 12--With less than two weeks to go until the U.S. Senate primary election, television has been peppered with ads knocking Democratic frontrunner Amy McGrath.

"Now, she's running as a pro-Trump politician," an ad by Lincoln County farmer Mike Broihier says.

"McGrath supported impeachment -- and wanted President Trump removed," an ad for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says.

"Kentucky needs a real Democrat to take on Mitch McConnell," an ad for state Rep. Charles Booker, D-Louisville, says. "Someone who will fight to guarantee health care and living wages for all, and not help Trump just get his way."

The scrutiny -- from Democrats and Republicans -- comes as the two more progressive candidates in the Democratic primary (Booker and Broihier) have raised enough money to buy limited television ads. They're using their ads to boost the message that McGrath isn't progressive enough to earn progressive votes in the primary.

"It's comical," said Mark Nickolas, McGrath's campaign manager. "I think the fact that they're both running together emphasizes the ridiculousness of it."

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The ads complicate things for McConnell, who has spent the last several months running ads touting McGrath as "further left" and "more progressive" than anyone in Kentucky.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. McGrath has tried to paint herself as someone who is driven to serve her country as a politician after finishing 20 years in the U.S. Marine Corps. After President Trump was elected, she was concerned and wrote a letter to former U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler seeking advice on how to run for office and was connected with Mark Nickolas, Chandler's old campaign manager.

The clip in McConnell's ad features McGrath on a panel talking about what drove her to run for office. McGrath's campaign has said it was about the "tone" of the 2016 election.

"It includes Trump, there's no doubt about it," Nickolas said. "But it was the whole climate, the attack, the getting in the mud. It was where we had come as a country, but Trump was certainly a part of that."

But Broihier and Booker are seizing on a McGrath talking point in which she says McConnell has prevented Trump for enacting policies lowering prescription drug prices and building more infrastructure.

In July, after she launched her Senate campaign, the Herald-Leader asked McGrath if she was a "pro-Trump Democrat." She emphasized that she was for specific ideas rather than a political party.

"This isn't about being pro-Trump or anti-Trump," McGrath said. "And this is the problem with politics. You can't put me in some partisan box. And this is the major difference between me and someone like Senator McConnell. If it's a good idea, I'm for it. It doesn't matter if you wear a red jersey or a blue jersey."

Yet, most of the policies McGrath supports are firmly from the Democratic Party -- creating a public option for health insurance, opposing Trump's immigration policies, increasing the minimum wage, supporting abortion rights and opposing the Republican tax reform bill from 2017. They fall very much in line with the views of former Vice President Joe Biden, who McGrath endorsed and who campaigned for her in 2018.

But for Booker and Broihier, and much of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, those policies don't go far enough. Both Booker and Broihier support things like a Universal Basic Income, Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. Booker was endorsed by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, while Broihier was endorsed by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.

Despite the presence of Booker and Broihier in the race, McConnell's campaign has been consistent in calling McGrath "too liberal for Kentucky."

"Amy McGrath cannot fool Kentuckians into thinking she is a pro-Trump Democrat because she is just as extreme as Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and their cast of liberal colleagues," said Kevin Golden, McConnell's campaign manager.

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