It’s on between former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath and Republican Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.

McGrath, 44, may be the strongest candidate the Democrats could land for next year's race against the Senate majority leader. But that doesn’t mean she’ll win. She lost a House race last year amid a blue wave, and now she’s taking on the Washington power broker most likely to make a Democrat turn bright red and start to sputter. And I don’t think that’s just me.

There was a telling moment at the first Democratic debate when NBC News’ Chuck Todd asked Sen. Elizabeth Warren what she had in mind if she were elected president and Republicans still held a Senate majority. “Do you have a plan to deal with Mitch McConnell?” he asked.

“I do,” Warren said. Even with a Republican Senate, she said, “the fight still goes on. It starts in the White House, and it means that everybody we energize in 2020 stays on the front lines come January 2021. We have to push from the outside, have leadership from the inside, and make this Congress reflect the will of the people.”

That didn’t sound like much of a plan to me. Here are a few concrete ideas:

First, Warren could have elaborated on her exhortation to "push from the outside." Democratic voters and candidates must send a message to rich donors and advocacy organizations: They need to finance massive, sustained publicity campaigns for whatever needs attention. Use TV and the web, and barnstorm the country like Jim DeMint and Ted Cruz did in 2013 for the Heritage Foundation. Their tour was one of many ceaseless efforts to kill the Affordable Care Act.

Conservatives tried dozens of times while President Barack Obama was in office and there was zero chance he would sign a repeal bill; they tried and failed in Congress when President Donald Trump took office, and they are still trying in court — inflaming the base, raising money, turning out votes.

Democrats could have used persistence like that when McConnell blocked Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, leaving the court with only eight justices for nearly a year. They also could have used it when the Russians were interfering in the 2016 election. They could use it now, when there should be a constant drumbeat about Trump. Any aspect of his presidency would do. I’d love to see the obstruction of justice portion of the Mueller report narrated or re-enacted in a collection of ads, like a miniseries.

Take risks and stretch rules like Trump

Second, push the legal and constitutional envelope. Look at what Trump is doing now on the census citizenship question. The Supreme Court rejected his rationale for adding it. He says he’s going to get it anyway, maybe by executive order. Will it work? Heck, it’s almost unconstitutional on its face. But Trump is kick-starting a court fight over whether he has that power, and maybe he will win.

Obama could have experimented along those lines when, with nearly a year left in his second term, McConnell refused to consider Garland for the Supreme Court because it was a presidential election year — a fraudulent rationale since he has already said that he would of course approve a Trump nominee in the presidential election year of 2020.

During a congressional recess or really at any point, Obama could have put Garland on the court and claimed that the Senate had failed to advise and consent. The move would have been challenged and tied up in court, but at least the public would have been aware that something really important was going on and that their president was fighting the good fight. And, like Trump and the census fight, maybe Obama would have won.

It's not too late to focus some of that outside pressure on the Supreme Court. In the past two years, which cases affecting people’s lives likely would have been decided a different way had McConnell not blocked Garland? He calls it the most consequential act of his career. I agree. Someone should be making those consequences clear.

Containing a McConnell-led minority

The best alternative, of course, would have been if Democrats had eliminated the filibuster on Supreme Court nominations when they did so for Cabinet and lower court nominations in 2013. They didn't, leaving it to McConnell and Republicans to knock it down in 2017.

Which brings us to a third way to handle McConnell in the event the 2020 election produces a Democratic president, a Democratic Senate majority and a reelected McConnell leading a minority large enough to block bills. Onstage at the debate, Warren could have pivoted to her own "leadership from the inside": She was the first major 2020 candidate to endorse ending the filibuster for legislation.

You need 60 votes to cut off filibusters intended to paralyze the Senate, and majorities are typically not that big. Democrats would need only 51 senators to end it for legislation. Then they’d be able to pass bills with 51 votes — or even just 50 plus a Democratic vice president.

In other words, majority rule instead of supermajority rule.

This matters a lot. To take just one example from 2013, a bipartisan gun background check bill “failed” in the Senate because “only” 54 senators voted to end a filibuster. You know where else it would matter? Democracy bills like D.C. statehood, a new voting rights act, gerrymandering reforms and election security. McConnell won’t bring them up.

So a Democratic president would have ways to deal with McConnell, assuming he wins reelection. Getting a head start on the outside game now, with ads and other types of pressure, could help McGrath make sure he doesn’t.

Jill Lawrence is the commentary editor of USA TODAY and author of "The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock." Follow her on Twitter: @JillDLawrence