While the focus for the upcoming election on Nov. 3 is largely focused around the race for the presidency, Kentucky features a highly contested race for the United States Senate.
The MKYGuide has prepared a glimpse at two major upcoming elections.
The Race for the Presidency
After winning the presidential election in 2016 against former first lady, Hillary Clinton, the Republican incumbent President Donald Trump, is up for re-election. This time Trump faces off against Democratic candidate for president, former Vice President, Joe Biden. Below are some of the popular campaign platforms the two are using to earn America’s votes.
(Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore)
(Photo courtesy of Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Healthcare
Trump’s Plan:
- Cut prescription drug prices.
- Put patients and doctors back in charge of the healthcare system.
- Lower healthcare insurance premiums.
- End surprise billing.
- Cover all pre-existing conditions.
- Protect social security and Medicare.
- Protect veterans and provide world-class healthcare and services.
Jobs
Biden’s Plan:
- Supports keeping the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) that the Obama’s administration signed into law.
- Keep the individual mandate and employee mandate.
- Give Americans a new choice, a public health insurance option like Medicare.
- Protects those with pre-existing conditions.
- Restore federal funding to Planned Parenthood.
Trump’s Plan:
- Create 10 million new jobs in 10 months.
- Create 1 million new small businesses.
- Cut taxes to boost take-home pay and keep jobs in America.
- Enact fair trade deals that protect American jobs.
- “Made in America” tax credits
- Expand opportunity zones.
- Continue de-regulatory agenda for energy independence.
- Bring back 1 million manufacturing jobs from China.
- Tax credits for companies that bring back jobs from China.
- Allow 100% expensing deductions for industries who bring back their manufacturing
- No federal contracts for companies that outsource to China.
Biden’s Plan:
- Provide state, local and tribal governments with aid so educators, firefighters and other essential workers aren’t being laid off.
- Extend COVID crisis unemployment insurance
- Ensure that the future is made in America, and in all of America.
- Build a modern infrastructure and an equitable, clean energy future.
- Imposing common-sense tax reforms.
- Provide state, local, and tribal governments with the aid they need so educators, firefighters and other essential workers aren’t being laid off.
- Provide a comeback package for Main Street businesses and entrepreneurs.
Future Energy Innovations
Trump’s Plan:
- Launch Space Force, establish permanent manned presence on the Moon and send the first manned mission to Mars.
- Build the world’s greatest infrastructure system.
- Win the race to 5G and establish a national high-speed wireless internet network.
- Continue to lead the world in access to the cleanest drinking water and cleanest air.
- Partner with other nations to clean up our planet’s oceans.
Biden’s Plan:
- Build a modern infrastructure.
- Position the U.S. auto industry to win the 21st Century with technology invented in America
- Achieve a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035.
- Make dramatic investments in energy efficiency in buildings, including completing 4 million retrofits and building 1.5 million new affordable homes.
- Advance sustainable agriculture and conservation.
- Secure environmental justice and equitable economy opportunity.
For a complete list of Trump’s plans for a second term, please click here.
For a complete list of Biden’s plans for a first term, please click here.
There are other third-party options on the ballot for the Presidency in Kentucky. For a full list, click here.
The Race for the Senate
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has served in the United States Senate for decades, handily winning his past elections. He now faces a Democrat opponent, Amy McGrath, who is making strides to unseat him.
United States Senator and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky speaks at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore)
(Amy McGrath/Facebook)
Mitch McConnell
Background: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has held a seat in the United States Senate for 36 years, first being elected in 1984 when he defeated two-term Democratic incumbent, Walter Dee Huddleston.
McConnell grew up in the southern part of Louisville, Kentucky and attended the University of Louisville. While attending the University of Louisville, McConnell was elected the president of the student body for the College of Arts and Sciences. He later graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Law where he served as the president of the Student Bar Association.
McConnell is married to Elaine L. Chao, the current U.S. Secretary of Transportation under the Trump administration after serving eight years as President George W. Bush’s U.S. Secretary of Labor.
McConnell has three daughters.
Qualifications:
- Intern for Sen. John Sherman Cooper
- Chief Legislative Assistant for Senator Marlow Cook
- Deputy Assistant Attorney General under President Gerald R. Ford
- County-Judge Executive in Jefferson County (Louisville), Kentucky
For a further look at McConnell’s campaign platform, you can visit his official website by clicking here.
Amy McGrath
Background:
Amy McGrath was born in Edgewood, Kentucky, where she grew up the youngest of three children. She grew up in an educated family; her father taught high school English and her mother was a pediatrician and a psychiatrist.
Amy attended the U.S. Naval Academy where she commissioned into the Marine Corps as an officer in 1997. She served 20 years in the Marines as an F/A-18 weapons systems officer and an F/A-18 pilot.
McGrath retired from the Marine Corps and returned home to Kentucky where she currently is raising her three children with her husband Erik, a retired Navy pilot. She currently lives in Georgetown, Kentucky.
Qualifications:
- Three Combat Deployments (Iraq/Afghanistan)
- F/A-18 Pilot and Weapons Systems Officer
- Served as a Congressional Fellow for a senior member of the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee on Defense and Foreign Policy
- Served in the Pentagon as Marine Corps’ Liasion to the State Department
- Masters Degree from John Hopkins University in Global Security
- Graduate of the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction Program for Emerging Leaders at the National Defense University
- Senior Instructor in the Political Science Department at the US Naval Academy
- Retired at Rank of Lieutenant Colonel
For a further look at McGrath’s campaign platform, you can visit her official website by clicking here.
Despite the differences in the candidates facing off against each other, the MKYGuide hopes that you will cast your vote.