LOUISVILLE, Kentucky – Incumbent Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) claimed victory tonight over Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes.
An enthusiastic crowd of several hundred at a ballroom in the Marriott Louisville-East roared their approval as they watched a giant video screen where Fox News declared incumbent Senator Mitch McConnell the winner in his hotly contested race with Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes at 7:10 pm EST. With 11% of the votes counted–just ten minutes after the polls closed at 7:00 pm EST–McConnell led Grimes by 56% to 41%.
Until a month ago, it looked like the race was a tossup. However, a series of missteps by Grimes, combined with a rising tide of anti-Obama administration sentiment, turned a dead heat into an easy victory for McConnell.
Just before the polls closed, Breitbart News spoke with one African-American voter who summed the campaign up nicely. “Alison tried hard, but she just should have told everyone who she voted for. People wanted to know who she voted for. Nobody liked when she wouldn’t answer the question.”
The voter was referring to two awkward interviews, one with the editorial board of the Louisville Courier-Journal, in which Grimes refused to answer that question after it was posed to her directly three successive times.