Skip to content Skip to footer

“We’re Going to Win”: Charles Booker Officially Files Campaign to Oust Rand Paul

Booker will run on a progressive platform, supporting Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.

Charles Booker is pictured in a photo from his senate campaign site.

Charles Booker, a progressive and former member of the Kentucky House of Representatives, officially filed campaign paperwork to run against Republican Sen. Rand Paul on Wednesday, vowing to win against the right-wing libertarian in the 2022 election.

“Today, I formally filed my candidate paperwork,” Booker wrote on Twitter. “Now that it’s official, allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Charles Booker, and I am running for United States Senate to finally defeat Rand Paul. It’s on.”

Booker has hinted at this campaign for months, and in April launched an exploratory committee to look into the possibility of running. The Kentucky progressive rose to fame during the 2020 election, when he ran against conservative Democrat Amy McGrath in the party’s challenge to now-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. After the Democratic Party machine aligned its money and power behind McGrath, Booker lost by 3 points; McGrath, in turn, was walloped in the general election, losing to McConnell by nearly 20 points.

Booker is running on a platform similar to that of his 2020 run, highlighting racial justice and calling for lowering prescription drug prices, Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, which he says could help bridge the gap between rural and urban citizens — an objective that he says Democrats have overlooked. Throughout his campaign, he will be focusing “on our common bonds,” Booker told reporters on Wednesday.

“When I stood on the tracks with miners, they talked to me about sustainable energy. When I stood with teachers in western Kentucky, they told me how they want to fully and equitably fund public schools. When I speak to farmers, they’re understanding that climate change is real,” he said.

Earlier this year, Booker launched a nonprofit called Hood to the Holler in hopes of mobilizing voters across the state. “It’s realizing that people are the most important aspect of democracy, it’s realizing that the voices of people in the forgotten places — the hood where I am from and the hollers in Appalachia and everywhere in between — that those voices are the pathway to a brighter future,” he said in an interview earlier this year.

Though Booker has been deemed a leading candidate for the race, he faces an uphill battle. Polling earlier this year found that Paul has decent chances of winning his reelection, with 53 percent of voters saying that they approved of his performance. 47 percent of respondents said they’d vote for him if the election were held at the time of the poll, and only 41 percent said they’d vote for a Democrat instead.

Democratic establishment figures are already casting doubt on his prospects, saying that a progressive couldn’t possibly win in Kentucky.

“He won’t break 40 percent,” former Democratic Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear told the Lexington Herald-Leader. “You’re misreading the Kentucky electorate if you’re thinking running as a progressive will win.” But McGrath, who progressives said badly misread the electorate during her run, was supposed to be a shoo-in against McConnell — and she didn’t break 40 percent of the vote, either.

Booker is optimistic that his approach of speaking to all potential voters — people who voted for Trump, low-income white populations and Black communities alike — will help him win. “It really requires the audacity to say, ‘OK, I’m a young Black guy from the hood, but I’m going to go into the hills in Appalachia and say, ‘Hey, our lives matter. I’m rationing my insulin. Or I’ve had to do that. You’ve had to do that.’ Let’s fight together,” he told the Daily Beast this week.

Unseating Paul would be significant for Democrats in the state, which hasn’t had a Democratic senator since 1999. Paul is a contentious figure in the Senate; throughout the pandemic, he has spread baseless conspiracy theories about COVID-19 treatments, disseminating lies so egregious that he’s gotten banned from YouTube.

Paul has also been a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, especially as false claims about the veracity of the 2020 election gained traction among Republicans. In January, he attempted to block Trump’s second impeachment trial by falsely claiming that it was unconstitutional. He’s also admitted to coordinating with Republican state lawmakers to pass voter suppression bills earlier this year.

We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.

As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.

Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.

As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.

At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.

Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.

You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.