With only six days remaining before Kentucky voters elect a senator to succeed Republican Mitch McConnell, Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Charles Booker made his closing argument to the electorate in a live interview with Raw America managing editor Carl Gibson. Gibson — a Kentucky native — and Booker discussed various topics impacting Kentucky voters, including:
Why universal health care strikes at the heart of the affordability issue at top of mind for midterm voters across the country
How Kentucky’s rural hospitals will be impacted by the Medicaid cuts in Republicans’ so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”
Booker’s plan to tackle corruption in Washington and his support for banning congressional stock trading
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s months-long detentions of Kentucky residents, including Kentucky State University basketball player Aminata Seck and Louisville mother Armelle Bondonga
Why Booker’s third Senate campaign is different from his last two runs
Whether Republican Andy Barr is trying to put distance between himself and Donald Trump given the administration’s widespread disapproval
The case to include Kentucky in the national conversation about a Democratic wave election
How Booker’s “From the hood to the holler” slogan is resonating with rural Kentucky voters
The nationwide backlash against AI data centers and Booker’s proposal for a nationwide moratorium on data center development
How the president’s tariffs are taking a toll on Kentucky’s bourbon industry
Booker’s final message to voters with six days to go before Election Day
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Gibson opened with affordability, noting that gas prices are up because of Trump’s war with Iran, which Barr repeatedly voted for in Congress. He then pointed to a Yale study published earlier this year finding that Medicare for All would save more than $1 trillion and 114,000 lives every year, and asked Booker why universal health care belongs in the affordability conversation.
Booker, a Type 1 diabetic, answered from personal experience.
“I have had to ration my insulin because I needed to choose between groceries or getting my refill, and so many Kentuckians know that truth,” Booker said.
He argued that the people voting to cut health care enjoy the best coverage available, paid for by taxpayers. “Everyone deserves the same high quality healthcare that corrupt politicians like Mitch McConnell and Andy Barr are getting,” he said, calling universal coverage “one of the best business decisions we can make.”
Booker tied the issue directly to Barr’s vote to cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid, which he said “is going to decimate families across Kentucky.” He added that the anger crosses party lines: “Everybody’s pissed off: Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.” Because medical debt is one of the leading drivers of bankruptcy, Booker said, health care sits at the center of his Kentucky First agenda.
Gibson pointed to a study from the Sheps Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ranking Kentucky second only to Louisiana in rural hospitals at risk of closing under the Medicaid cuts. More than 30 Kentucky hospitals are on the list, including St. Claire Regional Medical Center in Morehead, a major economic hub for Rowan County and the surrounding region.
Booker said the damage would reach well beyond patient care, wiping out jobs and hollowing out local economies. “This will crush so many communities across Kentucky, and it’s happening intentionally,” he said, arguing the cuts were made “to get billionaires another tax break. That’s the corruption that everybody’s sick and tired of.”
He framed his own platform, including making people like Elon Musk pay their fair share, as anything but extreme. “None of this is radical,” Booker said. “It’s common sense because people are falling off the cliff.”
Booker said that message is reaching Trump voters and first-time voters alike. “People need more money in their pockets. They need security, and we need high-quality healthcare,” he said. “And if we have those basic necessities, we’ll do the rest. We’re hardworking people.”
Gibson cited CNBC’s All-America Survey, released last week, which found more voters are concerned about corruption than about the price of groceries and gas. He listed Trump awarding federal contracts to his sons, enriching himself by billions of dollars from the Oval Office, and trading stocks at a dizzying rate, then asked what Booker would do about it as a senator.
“This is the land of Mitch McConnell,” Booker said. “When Donald Trump said he was going to drain the swamp, so many of us really were like, ‘Yeah, we need to drain the swamp.’ Mitch McConnell helped to create it.”
Booker said he would ban congressional stock trading outright. “Members of Congress shouldn’t be able to buy and trade stock. They shouldn’t be there seeking to get rich. They’re there to work for the people,” he said.
He has also taken a term-limits pledge, and he accused Barr of abandoning his own. Barr once sponsored term-limits legislation, Booker said, but like McConnell, he “saw the chance to get rich, become multimillionaires, and decided to give regular people the middle finger.”
Booker connected the issue to data centers as well, saying Barr has taken money from the telecom companies pushing those projects into Kentucky communities. “Why are they doing this? They’re getting paid to do it,” he said. His campaign, by contrast, is grassroots-funded and takes no money from foreign governments or big corporations.
Gibson noted that ICE’s crackdowns haven’t been limited to Minneapolis and Los Angeles. In Kentucky, the agency detained Kentucky State University basketball player Aminata Seck, a senior from Senegal, for two months while she was dealing with a torn ACL. Her attorneys say her medical care in custody was inconsistent and inadequate. In Louisville, ICE detained Armelle Bondonga at her final green card interview, even though she is married to a U.S. citizen and has a U.S.-born son. Gibson asked whether Booker would support a bill to abolish ICE, and whether a future Democratic administration should prosecute agents who violated people’s rights.
Booker said he would bring accountability, pointing to a plan he calls SALT: “Stop agencies’ lawlessness” and stop the agency’s “terror,” he said, “because that is what it is. We have seen terror across Kentucky, across our country, from these masked, unnamed men roaming the streets.”
Booker said he knows Bondonga personally. “That’s a young lady that I’ve known. I’m inspired by her,” he said. “She was pursuing the American dream.”
“This agency is not protecting the border. They’re not enforcing immigration laws,” Booker continued. “They’re trampling on the Constitution. They’re kidnapping innocent people.”
Rather than use the word “abolish,” Booker called for a Congress that will “stop funding that type of madness,” support local governments, and create pathways to citizenship for people “where their only infraction is their paperwork is out of date.” “We can solve this problem and secure our borders,” he said. “We just need leaders with the courage to do it.”
Booker ran against Sen. Rand Paul in 2022 and is now running for the seat McConnell has held for decades. Gibson, who turns 40 next year, noted that McConnell has been his senator for his entire life, and asked what’s different this time and what lessons Booker brought from four years ago.
“I don’t come from politics. I’ve never trusted politicians. Never thought I’d be doing anything like this,” Booker said. “I’m just fighting for my family. People of Kentucky are my family.”
Calling his third Senate bid “Rocky Three,” Booker said the biggest change is the world around the campaign. “The bottom is falling out for so many people in ways they can’t unsee, and they’re looking for leaders who will really fight for us,” he said.
He added that the message itself isn’t new. “It’s called affordability. That’s the brand now. But man, we’ve been talking about this for years,” Booker said, pointing to Musk’s march toward becoming a trillionaire, Trump’s ballroom, endless war, and trade fights with Canada. He acknowledged his campaign is being outraised, “but the energy on the ground is real,” built on years of trust with coal miners, small family farmers, nurses, teachers, and youth leaders.
Gibson pointed out that Gov. Andy Beshear won reelection as a Democrat in a deep red state, carrying plenty of Trump counties along the way. He noted that Barr made a show of loyalty to Trump during the primary, but with the president polling at record lows, Barr’s ads now tout his ability to work across the aisle. Gibson asked whether Barr is keeping the administration at arm’s length, and whether Trump voters are expressing buyer’s remorse.
“Yes, and yes,” Booker said. “Andy Barr is trying to distance himself while staying close to whatever popularity the president may still have. He’s trying to play it both ways. He’s a charlatan. He’s a shapeshifter. He has no backbone.”
Booker said Trump “tapped into a populist message that speaks to a lot of the fears and frustrations of people who’ve been screwed,” but that Barr chose division over the issues. With Trump underwater in Kentucky, Booker said, voters are noticing that the president never followed through. “He has not delivered,” Booker said, “and I’m actually lifting up that vision of draining the swamp, of making life affordable, of stopping endless war.”
Gibson noted that in the 6th Congressional District Barr is vacating, which covers Lexington and much of Central Kentucky, Trump-backed Republican Ralph Alvarado is now within the margin of error against Democrat Zach Dembo. Gibson added that his own look at the Senate polls showed Booker within 10 points of Barr. With national observers talking about Democrats flipping Senate seats in places like Iowa and Texas, Gibson asked why Kentucky belongs in that conversation.
Booker said pollsters are missing his coalition. “We’re tapping into a base that is not typically polled. We’re tapping into folks who don’t typically vote,” he said. “This is the power of the Rainbow Coalition. It’s always been here. We just haven’t leaned into it.”
Booker said his campaign is competitive in Barr’s own district, despite Barr being on the air for more than a year while Booker’s campaign only recently started running ads. He took aim at a Barr TV ad declaring it isn’t a sin to be Christian or white, saying voters struggling with groceries, gas, and health care see it as mockery. “Why are you playing in my face?” Booker said, describing voters’ reaction.
“On election day, a lot of folks will be scratching their head and asking, ‘Well, what happened in Kentucky? How’d they pull it off?’” Booker said. “We’ve been here the whole time, and if we win in places like Kentucky, we can do it everywhere.”
Booker explained that his campaign slogan, “From the hood to the holler,” is all about spreading his message of justice from rural areas like Mayfield and Pikeville to Louisville’s economically devastated West End. Gibson, who went to college at Morehead State University in rural Rowan County, Kentucky, noted the region’s long history of Democratic representation and asked how the message is landing in the far reaches of the 270 and 606 area codes.
“It’s like we found that pulse, that heartbeat was still there,” Booker said. “It was just buried on a lot of a status quo that has really tried to divide us.”
Booker said people regularly approach him in places where conventional wisdom says a Black candidate from Louisville’s West End wouldn’t find support. “People know what it means to feel forgotten, to feel ignored, to feel screwed over by a status quo, and that’s what my message is all about,” he said. “People know when you’re not BSing them.”
“It’s about community,” Booker added. “It’s about us seeing each other coming out of our corners, realizing we’re in this daggone thing together.”
Gibson noted that outside of Northern Virginia’s tech corridor, 92% of all data center development is happening in red states. Louisville’s Metro Council passed a moratorium after a contentious local fight, and polls show more than 70% of Americans don’t want a data center built near them. He asked what Booker is hearing from Kentuckians about projects that raise utility bills and strain water supplies.
“This is one of those hood to the holler issues,” Booker said. “It’s a unifier because we are all sick of bullies.”
Booker said Republicans, Democrats, and independents are all angry about massive projects that push people out of their homes, raise utility rates, and harm the environment, “and then we’re being asked to foot the bill for it.” He compared it to the way the fossil fuel industry has treated Kentucky communities for generations.
He also warned about the broader stakes of artificial intelligence, which he said could erase jobs and prey on vulnerable communities if it’s weaponized. “These huge developments that are happening, they’re not being done with people at the table,” he said. Booker’s working people’s bill of rights, part of his Kentucky First agenda, includes a nationwide moratorium on data centers. “We got to get this right. We cannot ignore the people,” he said.
Gibson turned to bourbon, one of Kentucky’s signature industries, which has been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs and Canada’s retaliatory tariffs. Distillers say they can’t sell their product, and everyone from distilleries to bars is feeling the squeeze. He asked what Booker is hearing from the industry and what he would do to help.
Booker said he’s hearing frustration and confusion. “Bourbon is being taken off the shelves because we are seeing an administration throw a temper tantrum and then a legislature lay down to it,” he said.
He singled out Barr’s support for the tariffs. “Andy Barr has called these reckless tariffs jet fuel for the economy. Where is he? Where is he coming from? Who is he talking to? Because we’re hurting here,” Booker said, noting that even McConnell and Paul have criticized the tariffs.
As senator, Booker said he would work to rein in the executive branch’s power to impose tariffs and push for Kentuckians to get refunds, because “this has been a tax on working people.” He also proposed advisory councils made up of organized labor, industry, community, faith, and youth leaders to help shape policy on tariffs and the war with Iran, which he said are hurting aluminum, steel, and farmers across the state.
With in-person early voting running Thursday through Saturday and Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 3, Gibson asked Booker for his final words to voters.
“It’s go time,” Booker said, urging Kentuckians to vote early and talk to “those you love, those you like, those you don’t quite like that much.”
“Most importantly, this campaign for me is rooted in love. I’m doing this because I love the people of Kentucky,” Booker said. “I’m sick and tired of us being screwed over, and I know we deserve a government that works just as hard as we do.”
He closed with a look at what a win would mean. “How poetic will it be to replace Mitch McConnell and send Andy Barr into retirement fighting for the people?” Booker said. Voters can learn more, donate, or volunteer at CharlesBookerKY.org.
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