Kentucky's Senate race reached a new level of nasty as a tea-party-backed candidate characterized the presumptive Democratic nominee as just a young woman short on life experience.
Republican businessman Matt Bevin explained Monday that he's better qualified than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to take on Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) because, in his words, she's just a collection of demographics rather than a serious candidate.
ThinkProgress reported Tuesday that Bevin made his comments about Grimes at a campaign event in Madisonville, Kentucky. Bevin referred to how he and McConnell have fared in polls against Grimes and said that Grimes runs on just four things:
I'm a stronger candidate largely because she runs on four things. She runs on some variation of: she’s young, she’s new, is a woman, and she’s not Mitch McConnell. That’s essentially what she’s got, in some form or fashion. And all those are true enough, and all of those, while they’re not substantive, they’re good enough to beat Mitch McConnell. [...] The reality is I negate essentially her only competitive advantages. She’s then forced to run against me by talking about issues, by talking about vision, by talking about life experience. And she really has none of the above on any of those fronts, she really doesn't. She’s a nice enough person, I’ve met her on several occasions on the campaign trail, seems nice enough, but completely devoid of what it takes for us.
Bevin and McConnell will face off in the Republican primary May 20. HuffPost Pollster, which combines all publicly available polling data, shows McConnell with a healthy lead over Bevin, 55 percent to 33 percent.
This isn't the first time Grimes has faced attacks related to her gender in her campaign to unseat the Bluegrass State's senior senator. In September, the National Republican Senatorial Committee's communications director called Grimes “an empty dress” who is "incapable of articulating her own thoughts."
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