Amy McGrath launches Senate run against Mitch McConnell: 'Somebody needs to stand up to him'

Retired fighter pilot Amy McGrath announced on Tuesday she's running for Senate in 2020 against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

In an announcement video that aired on MSNBC's Morning Joe, McGrath said that McConnell "was elected a lifetime ago" and has "bit by bit, year by year, turned Washington into something we all despise ... a place where ideals go to die."

McGrath in her video, which is titled "The Letter," also recalls writing to McConnell when she was 13, arguing that women should be able to fly fighter jets in combat, but that she never heard back. She asks, "I've often wondered, how many other people did Mitch McConnell never take the time to write back, or even think about?" In an interview with The Associated Press, that she "felt like somebody needs to stand up to him."

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) earlier this year was "actively recruiting" McGrath to run against McConnell, Politico reported in February, and McConnell's team, "leaving little to chance," quickly began putting together opposition research on his potential challenger. McGrath in 2018 ran for Congress against Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) but lost in a close race.

In , McGrath argued that "the things that Kentuckians voted for Trump for are not being done ... because of Senator McConnell." She also said that, as a moderate, she was "concerned" while watching the recent 2020 Democratic debates "that many of the candidates were pulling a little too far left." Brendan Morrow