Kentucky Sports Radio host Matt Jones says he can unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2020.
In a Politico story, Jones says he’s the only Democrat who can defeat the Republican McConnell in a state that voted heavily for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Speaking on his radio show heard on WHOP Monday morning, Jones says he’s more likely to run if Senator McConnell seeks a sixth term.
Jones addressed Phillip Thompson, who served as deputy campaign manager for Alison Lundergan Grimes in her failed 2014 Senate campaign. Thompson called Jones “just noise” and says he doesn’t have the political experience to be taken seriously. Jones says establishment Democrats in Kentucky haven’t had enough success in recent years to take shots at him.
Scott Jennings is a former adviser to McConnell and says in the article that Jones will have to answer for everything he’s ever said on his radio show if he chooses to run. Jennings says there’s an adage in the McConnell world that, “if you throw a pebble at me, we’ll throw a boulder back at you.” Jennings says “Jones has built up a whole quarry full of boulders,” which is the kind of talk that Jones believes shows the McConnell team knows he can win.
If Jones doesn’t run for the Senate in 2020, he says you can bank on him never running for an office in the future.
Jones says he if does run and upset McConnell, it “won’t be because of basketball,” but rather because people feel like they know him.
He weighed a run for Congress against Andy Barr in 2016, but ultimately decided against it.