Grimes's video pivots from attacking her Republican opponent to praising her grandmother. Grimes: 'I don't scare easy'

Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes left no doubt Thursday that she is willing to run just as blistering a campaign as incumbent Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

In a four-minute Web video, the Kentucky secretary of state called the Senate minority leader petty and spiteful and attacked him over a laundry list of votes. She told supporters that she will have a formal campaign kickoff event in Lexington on Tuesday.


“We’ll have this debate, senator, and as you’ve probably already seen: I don’t scare easy,” Grimes says defiantly.

The video is bookended with touching remembrances of her late grandmother, Thelma. She includes a clip from a 2011 ad when she first ran statewide and notes that her grandma died just months later.

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“Grandmother knew that if you wanted to get something done, you don’t stand in the way,” she says to the camera. “But that’s not happening in Washington today, and Sen. McConnell is the biggest part of the problem. He’s wasted decades blocking legislation that would have helped Kentucky and our country. And over the last few years, he’s done it for the worst possible reason: spite.”

“I don’t always agree with the president,” she adds, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t put the good of our people ahead of the bad that comes from acting petty and small.”

Grimes’s pivot from fondly recalling her late grandmother to attacking McConnell shows some dexterity on her part — and could help reassure supporters she has the stomach for 15 more months of trench warfare.

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“I’m right here in Kentucky, senator, where I’ll be holding you accountable for voting to double Medicare premiums on Kentucky’s seniors, including our retired coal miners,” she says. “For being against requiring the Department of Defense to buy equipment that’s made in America first, for failing to stand up for women when you voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Violence Against Women Act. And for opposing raising the minimum wage over and over again while you became a multimillionaire in public office.”

The McConnell campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.