Three possibilities:
If Mitch keeps the seat, the GOP will be missing a vote until (and if) he can return. This could affect, for example, confirmation hearings.
If Mitch dies or resigns more than 56 days before his term expires, the governor must call a special election to select a temporary replacement to serve out the remainder of the term. A Republican victory would be overwhelmingly likely,
If Mitch dies or resigns 56 days or less before his term expires, there is insufficient time to legally set up a special election. In this scenario, the seat would remains vacant until the winner of the November election is sworn in.
Kentucky is one of five states where the governor cannot name a replacement.
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A fourth possibility: Democrats take the 2024 succession law to court and win.
In case a court voided the 2024 law in its entirety and treated the 2021 statute as controlling, Governor Andy Beshear would regain a tightly limited appointment power, but in no case could a Democrat get the seat.
Because McConnell is a Republican, the Kentucky Republican Party’s state executive committee would submit three names. Beshear would be required to appoint one of those three. The appointee must have been continuously registered as a Republican since December 31 of the preceding year. Beshear would have 21 days after the party submits its list to make the appointment. The statute does not clearly impose a deadline on the party committee for submitting the list.
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If Mitch can’t return to work:
For Republicans, the best scenario is for McConnell to resign now, with the effect that, assuming the same candidates run in the special election as in the main one, the GOP would be able to replace McConnell in November rather than January.
For Democrats, the best scenario is Zombie Mitch – for McConnell to remain alive without resigning, but unable to cast his votes. This could cost the GOP a vote in some crucial upcoming votes.
You’re missing the atomic bomb hidden in the special election that’s driving all this: Massie.
He’ll run. He even has a good chance of winning.
Then, Trump has the biggest Epstein files preacher as a senator until well after he dies or goes to prison.
They’ll do anything to get to August 3rd.
The Special Election, by law, needs to be held on the date of the next regularly scheduled state election – presumably at the same time as the permanent election. The same candidates might run in both, but could be different people as well. The key thing there is that the winner of the special will only be in office from election day until swear-in day, whereupon the winner of the main election will take office.
(1) There is also a technical wrinkle: Kentucky’s special-election statute says an independent candidate may not be a registered member of a political party before filing the petition. Massie is presently a Republican, so he would have to satisfy that requirement before filing
(2) Massie got only 45% of GOP voters in his own congressional district, where voters have known him for fourteen years. We have essentially no evidence telling us how a voter in Bowling Green, Paducah or eastern Kentucky views him. That’s MAGA country.
3) There is a scenario in which Massie could be a likely winner – if the Democrats submit no candidate and throw all their support behind him. If he gets all the Dem voters and enough of the GOP, he could win. I don’t think the dems will do that, because Massie’s presence in the race gives them a chance to win outright. If Massie pulls enough votes away from Barr, it could be a three-way toss-up.
In the weirdest possible outcome, Booker or Massie wins the special, but Barr wins the real deal.
Alternatively Massie runs as an independent, splits the conservative vote and Booker wins. I wouldn’t presume Massie is popular but primaries usually feature the most zealous voters and aren’t representative of the voter base at large. The MAGA faithful showed up. The conservatives who like to sell bourbon and dislike pedoes didn’t.
The Dems have been crushing it in special elections and no Republican is safe anywhere.
Yes. I mentioned that possibility. It could turn into a competitive three-way race, but I don’t see Massie pulling a lot of votes out there in MAGA country.
Realistically, Zombie Mitch is what works best. If he’s alive, doesn’t resign, and can’t vote, the GOP loses a vote they may need.
Its not Maga country anymore. Some of the faithful won’t show up because this is what happens when your side is fucking up.
Massie doesn’t need to pull out a lot. Even if 10% of the Con vote goes to Massie that could be enough to flip the seat.
Remember that Massie WAS MAGA until the Epstein thing happened. That flipped him, hard. Running on a platform of promising every single will be released with only victims redacted is popular with both parties AND MAGA. Remember: most of MAGA doesn’t think trump is in there, or if he is, no evidence of wrongdoing is. They’re convinced they’ll find evidence Hillary is in there, confirming QAnon. Their lunacy works for us for once.
And in his district, he was set against a Trump approved ringer. That’ll be much harder to do in a state race.
Interesting about Thomas Massie, but if he couldn’t even win his own district, I’m not sure he can win the Rethug U.S Senate primary.
I’m actually not sure what the big deal about this race is.
1.Although I believe McConnell can vote remotely, I’m pretty sure he’s already missed multiple consecutive votes, almost certainly because he’s dead.
2.He isn’t running again anyway and this seat is up this year, and the race to replace him will almost certainly go to the Rethugs since they have a mainstream candidate for a Rethug who is currently the Lexington based representative in the U.S House (Andy Barr). The Democrats meanwhile are running a ‘progressive’ retread (Charles Booker) (he’s making his third run for the Senate, the first time he won the nomination, the second time he lost the nomination to a high ranking women retired military officer who was more centrist, but turned out, to be regarded as an insincere generic centrist.
If there is a special election, most likely these would be the same two candidates, though since it would only be for the lame duck session, it might not be.
I have to imagine the real goal for the Democrats here is to show that the Rethugs are so extreme now that they’re even trying to hide that one of their senators is dead. However, I know I’m missing something since I have no idea why the Rethugs are even doing this.
There is also the irony that McConnell was first elected to the Senate back in 1984 (42 years ago, 7 terms) by lying that the incumbent Democrat (Walter Huddleston) didn’t show up for work. McConnell even ran a commercial featuring a trained dog trying to find Huddleston.)
Re your point #1, the U.S. Senate doesn’t allow proxy voting or remote voting.
Because we have a weird-ass country.
They didn’t allow a Congresswoman with a newborn to cast her vote remotely. She brought her 4-week old with her on the floor to vote.
Democrats take back the senate? 😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😅😅😅😅😅😅
Or maybe you’re the fool.
I want there to be a McConnell biopic (or really, bioprick, I guess) with Mitch played by the guy who was Turtle on Entourage.
Seems pretty clear that both sides are trying to run out the clock on a special election.
Democrats benefit because they hate Trump.
Republicans also benefit because they hate Trump.
And I know you all hate Trump. But this really is the strongest evidence we’ve had that there is only one party, and they are absolutely united against the voters.
You know you’re dealing with an embarrassed conservative when they start trotting out “bOtH sIdEz!!!!” arguments.
Bingo!
So how do you feel about Trump, TrutherBob?
The irony of supporting a fascist and having a persecution complex at the same time. A guy who’s ripped the world apart with a pandemic under his watch that caused a recession who is now creating a new Vietnam to cause another one of his own doing.
Somehow with 5 and a half years in office and nearly two years with the majority to vote practically anything in, this is the end result. Maybe it’s just he’s too fucking incompetent and people like you are just too fucking stupid, so that’s why people want him out. Everyone else on this rock doesn’t have to accommodate idiots like yourself.
They will never evaluate their age objectively….. Term limits, including the Supreme Count
The problem with elderly people is the sudden deterioration factor. An 83-year-old man can retain all his faculties, and walk 9 holes of golf every day, so why should he retire? But the next day it can all disappear, and he’s a veg. There’s a high risk factor, even for the people that seem like rocks. Biden lost it in a hurry, as Trump is doing now.
I even experienced a form of this. The day before my 74th birthday, I played about four hours of tennis and pickleball, as I did pretty much every day. The very next day, my birthday, I only wanted to go back to sleep for about 36 hours and one kidney shut down.
I went from the condition of a 40-year-old man to an 80-year-old man in one day. My case was a fluke and I was able to get back to normal, but if it had been a stroke or a heart attack, I could have aged 40 years overnight.
With a 37-year-old person, there’s little risk of that happening.There’s a very good chance that today and tomorrow will be identical.
We have to stop voting for old coots.
Agreed! US law dictates that airline pilots must retire at age 65, and they’re only responsible for the lives of 200-ish people at a time. These geezers (and I count myself among them) have no business ruling a nation of 340-odd million.
They won’t leave voluntarily, of course, and passing a constitutional amendment is a longshot.
But I wonder if states could implement their own rules? “No person shall be elected, appointed, or serve in any office – local, state, or federal – who has exceeded the age of 65 years.”
Amen.
One issue is that it’s an actual symptom of things like dementia that the person doesn’t even KNOW they’re in decline. Not just blanket denial, but an actual effect of the illness. Robin Williams had enough sense left that he didn’t want to go down that path and ended it.
But really it isn’t even just that, it’s that staffers create a feedback loop to Weekend at Bernie’s these politicians. Their career hinges on the person staying in office as well as the person staying in office not understanding their decline.
Technically, Williams had Lewy-Body Dementia. Different deck of cards. Bobcat Goldthwaite had become his best friend. Visited him in the days before his death. He’d become convinced that men were going to kill his family if he didn’t kill himself. Lewy-Body makes you go mad. Literally. It’s why people like Bruce Willis are constantly surrounded by family. He’s a danger to himself.
Is this a crime? Because if he’s dead and they’re hiding it for political reasons, it feels crimey to me.
They’d say they’re just hanging an asterisk off of ‘alive’. Dishonest but not a crime.
Also, I don’t agree that Trump is losing it.That implies that he ever had it.
I think that probably is the likeliest thing. McConnell isn’t dead but he’s a brain-dead zombie.
Again, I can’t understand why they’d hide it. If there is no special election, it means they lose a vote in the lame duck session. If there is a vote, 99% certainty Andy Barr is the Senator in the lame duck session.
I had the same thought. I can’t figure out their play. Perhaps they realistically think McC will be back and voting soon, which is the one circumstance that gets their missing vote back quickest.
Weekend at Mitch’s?
Based on recent history, Kentucky Republicans aren’t always the most practical. The state was ‘completing’ the transition of the urban areas becoming Democratic and the rest of the state becoming Republican.
In 2003 Republican Ernie Fletcher (who represented the afformentioned Lexington based 6th Congressional district) won the governorship with a suprisingly easy 55-45% win over the Democratic Attorney General Ben Chandler.
Anne Northup who represented Louisville/Jefferson County in the U.S House had just been narrowly defeated in 2006.
Governor Ernie Fletcher was becoming increasingly unpopular due to corruption and Anne Northup challenged him in the primary. Even though *everybody* knew Fletcher would lose reelection in the general election, he turned the primary into a test of loyalty arguing that anybody who challenged him was a traitor disloyal to the Republican Party. He ended up beating Anne Northam in the primary 50-36%
In the general election, Steve Beshear (the father of current governor Andy Beshear) defeated Fletcher 59-41%
If you’d think the Republicans had learned their lesson, in 2015 they nominated a Trump like lunatic named Matt Bevin for governor who also won a surprisingly large victory Democratic nominee Attorney General Jack Conway 52.5-44.0% However, unlike Trump, Bevin was considered obnoxious by pretty much everybody and never managed to develop a cult of personality.
Un 2019, Bevin was the least popular governor in the U.S according to opinion polls but the only person who challenged him in the primary was a little known state representative named Robert Goforth who Bevin defeated 52.5-39%. (Goforth has subsequently been indicted for strangulation (first degree) and convicted for fraud.)
Kentucky has become even more Republican since 2007 and Bevin narrowly lost to the Democratic nominee, Attorney General Andy Beshear 49.2-48.8%
For good news for (corrupt) Republicans, they now hold the office of Attorney General in Kentucky.
As one final aside, of course 2006 was a very good year for the Democrats nationally, but the national Democrats had basically given up on defeating Anne Northup who had become regarded as a strong candidate and political survivor. They especially gave up in 2006 as the local Democrats elected John Yarmuth, a publisher of a local weekly newspaper who had a history of publishing liberal and other ‘extreme’ views in his columns.
Yarmuth narrowly beat Northup and then defeated her by nearly a 60-40% margin two years later (of course 2008 was also a strong Democratic year and Northup was perhaps damaged goods by then.)
Maybe the lesson isn’t so much left or right but authenticity.
I should point out one quirk about Kentucky’s gubernatorial elections: They’re done at the dumbest time imaginable.
They’re done on odd years: 2027 – 2023 – 2019 – 2015 – etc
Unsurprisingly voter turn out is pretty low. Bevin “won” in 2015 but there was only a 30% turnout. Beshear’s wins were somewhat more legit with 45% and 38%. There hasn’t been a +50% since 1983.
Fair point.
But his concentration is steadily diminishing. It seems that any topic devolves into 2020 or his vanity projects.
Dear Scoop, This is an aside. Just bc you’re a smarty-pants. You think you’re smarter than me. Maybe so. You think you’re smarter than everybody. I don’t concede the point, bc I don’t think “smarter” is a thing. But here’s an appeal to authority on the matter of the rules of SCOTUS. If anybody’s smarter than me, & in fact, than you, it’s Brad DeLong.
Brad calls the rules of SCOTUS: CalvinBall! Precisely. Exactly my point. He’s right. You, & a lot of supposedly “smart” people are wrong. BC you & they simply don’t understand the game.
Neofascism, & c.
CROSSPOST: ALAN WOLFF: Trump’s New Tariffs Over Forced Labor Are Unlikely to Survive a Court Challenge
The subheadline: “The Trump administration is again shifting its stated rationale for placing comprehensive tariffs…”. 60-country tariffs in search of a human-rights pretextual costume…
Brad DeLong
Jul 24, 2026
If the goal were really fighting forced labor, why sort 60 countries into just two flat rates? The uniformity gives the game away, and the courts are likely to notice—and, ultimately, sink this rationale for tariffs. But in the two years it takes to happen, the tariffs will be collected. Refunds will be partial and burdensome to obtain, and are not certain: Chief Justice Roberts and his five complicit corrupt colleagues in the Supreme Court majority are playing CalvinBall, after all. And Trump and the Trumpists will, two years from now, find another rationale for the tariffs if they even want to stay the course then:
Alan Wolff does the work of the LORD, or perhaps of Sisyphus.