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Charles Booker grew up in Louisville’s West End in a family that worked hard and still struggled to make ends meet. Living with Type 1 diabetes, he has described rationing insulin and choosing food for his daughters over an insulin refill. For Charles, the cost of living is not an abstract debate. He has lived the consequences.

Charles became Kentucky’s youngest Black state legislator in nearly 90 years. In the Senate, he will give Kentuckians a voice that understands what is at stake. No family should have to choose between medicine and groceries, and no community should be written off because of where it is on the map.

• Lower costs. Raise wages. Cut taxes for working and middle-class families, suspend the federal gas tax for a year, fight excessive fees, protect Social Security and Medicare, and defend workers’ freedom to organize for better pay and benefits.
• Make health care affordable and accessible. Restore ACA subsidies, support a Commonwealth-run public insurance option, lower prescription costs, protect Medicaid, and invest in rural hospitals and telemedicine.
• Stand up for Main Street, farms and bourbon. Fight reckless blanket tariffs, expand affordable small-business lending, cut federal paperwork, and support a farm bill that puts Kentucky farmers first.
• Protect energy workers and ratepayers. Protect miners’ pensions and black lung benefits, fund mine cleanup, and support affordable power and union energy jobs. Pause new AI data centers until their impacts are understood and require existing centers to cover their utility costs.
• Build a stronger Kentucky. Repair roads and bridges, finish rural broadband, upgrade water systems, and strengthen flood resilience with Kentucky workers earning good union wages.
• Keep communities safe. Support police, sheriffs and first responders, strengthen mental health crisis response, fight fentanyl, expand treatment and recovery, and invest in proven violence prevention.
• Keep politicians out of medical decisions. Respect Kentucky’s 2022 constitutional-amendment vote. Decisions about pregnancy, contraception, IVF and miscarriage care belong to women, their families and their doctors. Protect contraception, IVF and emergency pregnancy care.
• End reckless wars. Honor those who serve. End the war in Iran, restore Congress’s war-powers oversight, support a strong defense, and deliver the health care and benefits veterans earned.
• Put public service ahead of personal profit. Support congressional term limits, ban congressional stock trading and post-Congress lobbying, and demand transparency from elected officials.

Voters need to hear that Andy Barr has been in Congress since 2013. His record on tariffs, health care and war powers is the wrong set of priorities for Kentucky families.

Barr stood with Trump on emergency tariffs, even when Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul opposed them. On February 20, 2026, both senators welcomed the Supreme Court’s rejection of Trump’s emergency tariffs. Barr responded: “I fully support President Trump’s decision to reinstate tariffs.”

In 2017, Barr voted for the American Health Care Act, which his own office described as repealing most of Obamacare. On March 5, 2026, he voted against a War Powers resolution directing the removal of U.S. forces from unauthorized hostilities in Iran.

Voters need to hear the campaign’s contrast: Andy Barr is a weaker clone of Mitch McConnell-style Washington politics. Barr once interned for McConnell and has described him as a mentor. Kentucky needs a new voice, not more of the same politics with a different name.

Voters should be reminded of McConnell’s unpopularity. In an Emerson survey of Kentucky likely voters conducted March 29-31, 2026, 71% disapproved of his job performance.

Public service should make life better for Kentuckians, not make politicians richer. Charles Booker’s Kentucky First agenda puts people ahead of Washington insiders and public service ahead of personal profit.

• Backing a candidate who defended Trump’s emergency tariffs, even when both Kentucky senators opposed them.
• Backing a candidate who voted for a bill his own office described as repealing most of Obamacare.
• Backing a candidate who voted against removing U.S. forces from unauthorized hostilities in Iran.
• More McConnell-style Washington politics instead of Booker’s Kentucky First agenda to lower costs and invest here at home.

Voters need to know that Charles Booker called for transparency after Mitch McConnell’s June hospitalization. On July 8, Charles said the public needed to know if McConnell was not in a position to serve. Kentuckians deserved timely updates and honest answers about their senator’s ability to do the job. If an elected official can no longer fulfill those responsibilities, Kentuckians deserve representation from someone who can.

Kentucky First means making life better here at home, not making excuses for Washington.

• More information can be found on the campaign website at https://charlesbookerky.org.
• Read Charles Booker’s policy positions at https://charlesbookerky.org/policies and learn more about his background at https://charlesbookerky.org/meet-charles.