Mitch McConnell is feeling the heat of the 2014 campaign already; the Senator started running campaign ads in March. McConnell obviously feels like his seat may be in jeopardy despite there not being anyone to run against him yet.
The Democrats have been unable to find someone to run against the Senate minority leader. For a while Ashley Judd was considering a run, but ultimately it was just hype. If the Democrats are serious about taking his seat they will have to find the perfect candidate to go against McConnell.
"He's a stone wall against his adversaries," Nan Gorman, mayor of Hazard, Ky., said referring to how difficult it will be to win an election against McConnell.
Despite serving in the Senate since 1984, McConnell is not a beloved figure in Kentucky. In a poll conducted by the Louisville Courier-Journal in January, 34 percent of voters said they planned to vote against McConnell without having any idea who would be running against him.
Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes told WHAS that McConnell is "the very essence of what's wrong with Washington right now." Grimes is thought to be one of the potential opponents for McConnell but has yet to announce if she is running, according to the Washington Post.
"Kentuckians are tired of the obstruction," Grimes said. "They are tired of the failed policies, and they are looking for new leadership."
With no opponent to take on yet McConnell has been campaigning against the Obama administration. In the eastern part of Kentucky an anti-Obama message sits well with workers in the coal industry who feel as if their livelihood has been challenged by Obama's policies.
"What does President Obama and his administration and his EPA have against Kentucky?" McConnell said at a recent appearance. "Just because their hostility is undeclared doesn't make it any harder to see. The administration is dead-set on trivializing your livelihood and our economy all in pursuit of their own radical ideology."
McConnell may have to worry about challengers coming from places other than the Democratic Party. In 2010, McConnell supported Trey Grayson in his race against Rand Paul thus making himself a target for the Tea Party. McConnell appears to have mended that fence by becoming allies with Paul, he even went so far as to hire Paul's campaign manager Jesse Benton, but it remains to be seen if this will be enough to assuage the Tea Party.
McConnell feels confident about his chances regardless of who ends up challenging him.
"Look, I don't have any sense of entitlement. I don't own this job," McConnell said. "The core of it is basically going to be a choice, and in what way would it be better to replace a leader of one of the two parties in the Senate with a rookie who might not ever be in the position of influence and leadership for our state and our country that I am, and certainly wouldn't be there in the next couple of decades? That's an argument I'm prepared to make."
Democrats feel that the people of Kentucky are ready to replace that leader, if they can ever decide who exactly wants to take the role.
