2018 saw a surge of energy in Democratic Kentucky politics: Amy McGrath, a former Marine Corps fighter pilot, was challenging Republican Andy Barr in Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District. She had raised more money than her opponent, and an attack ad, which quoted audio of her saying, “I am more progressive than anyone in the state of Kentucky,” likely sounded pretty good to the state’s Democratic voters. William Byerman, 18, was among the young people who canvassed for her campaign. “At this time, I supported her as a candidate and as a person, and I appreciated her message in trying to appeal to a generally conservative area,” he explained to Teen Vogue.

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Following a narrow loss to Barr, McGrath burst back onto the political scene in summer 2019, with a viral video announcing she would officially be taking on Senator Mitch McConnell in the fall 2020 race. She raised $2.5 million in the first 24 hours following the announcement, and it seemed like Kentucky would finally have a forceful challenger to McConnell, who remains the second-least-popular senator in the country.

But now, as the Democratic primary approaches, some younger voters are expressing misgivings. (The date was recently delayed from May 19 to June 23 on account of the coronavirus pandemic.) Kentucky teens who spoke to Teen Vogue say that they believe McGrath has pivoted rightward, and they think the national Democratic Party has centered her campaign at the expense of more progressive candidates. Even young adults who described themselves as moderate or centrist Democrats expressed frustration, saying they feel the campaign has failed to excite and engage young voters the way her congressional campaign did. As Byerman, the former McGrath volunteer, explained, this time he’ll likely “end up gritting my teeth and voting for her.”

Among their specific critiques: McGrath repeatedly changing her position on whether she would have voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court (first saying that she would not; then claiming in 2019 she “probably” would; and then soon after tweeting that “upon further reflection and further understanding of his record” she, in fact, would not.) Then there’s McGrath’s tendency, they say, to talk about the policies she opposes rather than what she supports.

“She regularly has been tentative to express any explicit policy or stance, going for an anti-McConnell campaign rather than a pro-McGrath,” Byerman said.

Will Powers, 19, agreed that he had no idea what McGrath stood for, but rattled off some of the things she opposes, including Medicare for All and tuition-free college. “It’s hard to understand McGrath as a candidate beyond what she isn’t in favor of,” he said.

The McGrath campaign did not provide Teen Vogue with comment.

Kentucky politics is more complicated than the stereotype of a red state that is largely on board the MAGA train. The state was run by a Democratic governor for all but eight years since 1992. In 2019, when Governor Andy Beshear defeated Matt Bevin, the other state races went pretty solidly red. As youth activism surges throughout the country and young voters become a voting bloc presidential candidates are striving to lock down, the young Kentuckians Teen Vogue spoke to feel like McGrath’s Senate race is leaving them out. Other candidates include Mike Broihier, who recently announced universal basic income as part of his campaign; Charles Booker, who was elected to the Kentucky State House of Representatives in 2018, and is running on supporting the Green New Deal and Medicare for All; and Jimmy Ausbrooks, a mental-health counselor and advocate — but the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) endorsed McGrath in February. On the ground, young voters say, it often feels like a primary isn’t happening at all.

“I think McGrath has an advantage over other candidates, just in terms of fundraising, name recognition, and things like that, and I used to think she was the best candidate to beat Mitch McConnell,” said Emily Johnson, 18, who told Teen Vogue she was a finance intern on McGrath’s campaign for two months. “But I now plan on voting for Charles Booker.”

“I don’t feel the campaign has done a good job reaching out to young voters,” said Johnson. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with reaching out to older, more moderate voters. I just don’t think that should be the only demographic you talk to.” Johnson observed that the McGrath campaign events she’s seen publicized are often in the middle of the day, rendering them inaccessible for working people or student voters.

“For many people outside of Kentucky, they only know her name. They don’t even know there is a primary,” one Kentucky Democratic strategist, who spoke on background to maintain anonymity because of their position, told Teen Vogue. “I think in general at the state and federal level, the Democratic Party needs to do much more investing in the people that already agree with them. Democrats who don’t vote or people that are not registered but agree with Democratic values.”

Meanwhile, Powers, who moved to California for college, recalled introducing himself in class and a professor retorting, “You need to get that Mitch thing figured out in Kentucky.” “There’s this perception we all enabled Mitch, we all are complicit in his wrongdoings, but what’s truly enabled Mitch is the Democratic Party and the coastal elites ignoring our struggles in Kentucky until it’s an election year,” Powers told Teen Vogue. “Even more so now that the DSCC is endorsing her, it feels like ‘these rednecks in Kentucky can’t be trusted to make their own choices, so we will make it for them.’” People outside the state, Powers claimed, view McGrath as a savior, and while Powers said he’ll vote for her in the general if she’s the nominee, he doesn’t think she’ll win.

“She’s fairly unsuccessfully handled the sort of walking that tightrope between being liberal enough to win among Democratic voters in a primary and being conservative enough to win a general election,” Stephen Voss, a political science professor at University of Kentucky, told Teen Vogue. McGrath’s clumsy attempts “to figure out what her message is ran the risk of alienating voters,” Voss added.

Professor Joshua Douglas, who teaches at the University of Kentucky College of Law and is the author of Vote for US: How to Take Back Our Elections and Change the Future of Voting, observed that, at least in the urban centers of Lexington and Louisville, he has seen that “a lot of people who are very excited about Charles Booker and are sort of confused as to why the media has anointed Amy as the presumptive nominee.”

Direct party outreach to youth voters and pre-registration of 16- and 17-year-olds could all help boost engagement among Kentucky teens, Douglas said. The League of Women Voters’ We Vote! campaign for Kentucky high schools to register all eligible students to vote was one good example, he said.

Young Kentuckians say they’ve witnessed little such outreach from the state Democratic Party or the McGrath campaign itself.

“I've heard more from [DNC chair] Tom Perez about Amy McGrath than literally anyone else,” Lily Gardner, 16, told Teen Vogue. “I think, very frankly, the times when I hear about the McConnell Senate race are times in fundraising emails from the DNC, and that’s probably about it.”

That was echoed by Allie Roberts, 18, who told Teen Vogue she thinks that the state Republican Party does a much better job at making inroads with young voters. “Young Republicans are often very involved in political campaigns, and I know of many that are even paid to go door-to-door for candidates, while I feel young Democrats do not have as many of the same opportunities,” she said. That could potentially be a missed opportunity, given that voter turnout in the 2019 gubernatorial election was around 42% in Kentucky (up from 30.7% in 2015), and while a Democratic surge largely happened in bigger cities, several counties in eastern and central Kentucky also saw a strong Democratic trend, according to The Daily Yonder. Lily said she thinks “young people are doing this [voting] thing that we say that they don’t do despite the fact that the Democratic Party is not engaging with them.”

“The Kentucky Democratic Party is forbidden by its bylaws from having any role in a primary election,” Marisa McNee of the Kentucky Democrats told Teen Vogue when reached for comment. “We have to be neutral at all times.” They cannot do anything that could be perceived as promoting one candidate over another, up to the presidential level, McNee said, though they will work with the nominee closely following the primary election. “The point is for the voters to pick the nominee, not the party,” McNee added.

Young Kentuckians from across the Democratic spectrum say they want to see their representatives push more progressive policies. Byerman said he’d like to see the state “find a clean transition away from coal,” while Johnson said “it’s not enough to run a middle-of-the-road campaign against Mitch McConnell’s far-right campaign.”

“I want someone who’s committed to taking bold action in terms of the climate crisis, student loan debt, health care, and other issues that are important to young people in Kentucky and across the country,” she said. “To me, that means electing someone who’s going to fight for a Green New Deal, ‘Medicare for All,’ and free college for all.”

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