Mitch McConnell was one of the earliest supporters of Rand Paul’s presidential hopes, putting his support firmly behind his fellow Kentuckian after last year’s midterm elections.

“He’ll be able to count on me,” McConnell said in November.


But as Paul prepares to launch his presidential campaign next month, his White House ambitions could give the Senate majority leader more than he bargained for.

Paul is poised to make an unprecedented move in Kentucky: running for the Senate and the White House at the same time, despite a clear ban in state law preventing him from appearing on the ballot twice. If Paul’s presidential bid catches fire, it could put his seat — and Republicans’ Senate majority — at risk.

The odds of a political disaster appear to be small, but it’s enough of a cause for concern that McConnell and his confidants have engaged in extensive private discussions with Paul to avoid the doomsday scenario. McConnell has privately suggested that Paul initiate a lawsuit to immediately clarify whether he can pursue both offices, an action Paul resisted because of the cost of such a suit. The two have discussed whether a placeholder Senate candidate could file for office, in the event Paul’s presidential bid were to take off, though pulling that off would be tricky.

“That issue will be dealt with at the appropriate time,” McConnell told POLITICO last week when asked how a successful Paul bid at the presidential nomination could affect the Senate seat.

Paul lobbied a reluctant McConnell to back a plan for the Kentucky Republican Party to change the presidential primary system into statewide caucuses after giving the GOP leader assurances he’d help cover the costs of holding the one-time event and that it wouldn’t interfere with 2015 state races. That change, which still needs to be approved by party officials, would give Paul the flexibility to pursue both offices — but only during the primary. And Democrats are already discussing a lawsuit to block it as early as the filing deadline next January.

The high-level contingency planning underscores the stakes at play when Paul announces his presidential bid, which he is expected to do next month in Louisville.

If Paul were to pull off the improbable and win the GOP presidential nomination, the senator and his team are confident that the courts would either allow him to pursue both offices in the general election or permit the state party to name a replacement candidate for the Senate. He has sought legal advice from prominent GOP election attorneys who believe that the courts would uphold his argument, something he and his team have discussed with McConnell.

Asked whether he is worried that his presidential nomination would effectively cost his party a Senate seat, Paul said: “I don’t think we interpret it that way.” He predicted courts would strike down the state law if he were to win the GOP presidential nod. Still, he said he wouldn’t pursue legal action right off the bat “because it’s very expensive and time consuming.”

But nothing is certain when a matter lands in federal court — let alone a case with momentous political implications. The worst-case scenario could mean either that Paul would have to forfeit Kentucky’s eight electoral votes to a Democratic presidential candidate or abandon the Senate seat and leave his party without a candidate in next year’s general election. His handling of the situation could provide fodder for opponents accusing the senator of gambling with his seat in order to pursue his political ambitions.

Members of the Kentucky Republican Party’s executive committee briefly aired concerns about the possibility of losing the Senate seat to Democrats as a result of Paul’s efforts to run for both offices during a closed, two-hour session earlier this month. Some members seemed willing to make that trade.

“One gentleman stood up and said, ‘Look, like in chess, you’ve got a king, queen and bishop — and if you can trade a bishop for a king, you’ll do it. If I’m being asked to give up a Senate seat for the White House, I’m willing to do it,’” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a tea party-linked Paul ally who attended the meeting, recounted in an interview.

“It was a very positive discussion,” Massie added. “Everyone is excited about the prospect of having a Kentuckian in the White House.”

Well, maybe not everyone.

“It’s one of the five most selfish moves ever in politics,” said one GOP source following the issue closely, who asked not to be named in order to speak candidly.

Several members of the committee declined to comment or didn’t return calls.

Paul is already thinking about his own contingency plans. If his presidential candidacy doesn’t seem viable after many states have voted by early March 2016, he is likely to abandon his campaign early enough to continue pursuit of the Senate seat — and not risk McConnell’s majority.

“He’s not like his father,” said one Republican ally of Paul’s, referring to former Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s refusal to quit in 2012 despite the steep odds.

The presidential campaign is marking a new chapter in the McConnell-Paul political alliance that began immediately after Paul upset McConnell’s handpicked candidate in the GOP primary. Since then, McConnell has moved aggressively to take Paul under his wing. McConnell relied on the libertarian-leaning senator’s popularity and appeal to the conservative grass roots as the two barnstormed Kentucky during the GOP leader’s successful reelection bid last year. Now, Paul is calling in the favors.

“We’ve worked together on so many things that I just thought it was a furtherance of our friendship and alliance, and sort of a logical conclusion,” Paul said of winning McConnell’s endorsement to change the presidential primary to a caucus.

Still, while McConnell publicly backs Paul’s presidential run, it’s doubtful the GOP leader will do much fundraising for his colleague’s White House hopes.

“Sen. McConnell has made his support for Sen. Paul clear, but he also has a job to do,” said Brian McGuire, McConnell’s chief of staff. “He has no plans at this time to do any presidential campaigning.”

Paul’s maneuvering intensified immediately after McConnell’s reelection. At McConnell’s election night party in Louisville, Paul buttonholed the state party chairman, Steve Robertson, and the two had a half-hour discussion about the far-reaching idea to turn the presidential primary into a caucus system. That presumably would circumvent the prohibition of appearing on the ballot twice in the primary since a caucus would not rely on a paper ballot.

Earlier this month, the state party’s 50-member executive committee endorsed Paul’s caucus proposal, despite concerns from some committee members over the cost of the proposal and whether it would disenfranchise absentee voters. A proposal that includes all the logistics of holding a caucus over a primary and addresses those concerns will be presented to the 350-member full committee, which rarely bucks the executive committee, in August. Proponents say moving up a caucus to March in the presidential calendar would give the Bluegrass State a bigger say in the nominating process than if the primary remained in May.

“This is the first time we have taken up an issue of this magnitude,” Robertson said. “It’s a proposal that’s going to have to be well constructed. … We are just beginning the work of putting the details together.”

Paul’s eligibility hinges on a Kentucky election law that stipulates: “No candidate’s name shall appear on any voting machine or absentee ballot more than once,” other than in certain special election situations. The law allows the state party to replace a candidate on the ballot in case of death, disqualification or “severe disabling condition which arose after the nomination” as long as it’s before the mid-September deadline to certify candidates.

If Paul ends up winning the GOP’s presidential nomination, party officials could go down the complicated path of suing to keep his name on the ballot for the Senate race or trying to replace him with a different candidate. A new candidate would have only a few months to campaign, however. A placeholder candidate, who would have to file for office by January’s deadline and compete only if Paul were to stay in the presidential race, would add its own political and legal complications.

And if Paul were to resign and let a new senator take his place, the governor — who will be elected this year — would appoint the new senator. (Polls show a close race between likely Democratic nominee Jack Conway, who was defeated by Paul in the 2010 Senate race, and three Republicans vying for the party’s nomination.)

“I think it does add an element of interest certainly to the governor’s race,” said Eric Lycan, who served as counsel to McConnell’s 2014 campaign.

If Paul is on the ballot, it will be much harder for Democrats to win in the conservative state. But all bets are off if it suddenly becomes an open seat — or if the GOP incurs a loss in court.

“Absolutely, we can compete in Kentucky,” said Montana Sen. Jon Tester, head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “They’ve got 24 seats up; there are a dozen of them we can compete in, and Kentucky is one of them.”

Even after the Kentucky GOP officially endorses the caucus proposal, the path forward remains uncertain and will likely be full of hurdles for Paul. Democrats are likely to do more than challenge the ballot issue in a general election — they’re also expected to file a lawsuit over the caucus system, arguing it disenfranchises voters.

“At the end of the day, this is all going to court. Nothing is going to happen until next January after the filing deadline,” said Scott White, an election lawyer who worked for Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Democratic candidate whom McConnell vanquished last year. “Sen. Paul has come up with a scheme — and you gotta give him credit, it’s clever. But at the end of the day, it’s the height of selfishness.”