KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Rev. Emanuel Cleaver III wants a second Civil Rights Movement in response to President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans who are redrawing congressional district boundaries to increase their power in Washington.

In Missouri, the GOP’s effort comes at the expense of Cleaver’s father, Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, and many of his Kansas City constituents who fear a national redistricting scramble will reverse gains Black Americans won two generations ago and leave them without effective representation on Capitol Hill.

“If we, the people of faith, do not step up, we are going to go back even further,” the younger Cleaver told the St. James Church congregation on a recent Sunday, drawing affirmations of “Amen” in the sanctuary where his father, also a minister, launched his first congressional bid in 2004.

Trump and fellow Republicans admit their partisan intent, emboldened by a Supreme Court that has allowed gerrymandering based on voters’ party leanings. Democratic-run California has proposed its own redraw to mitigate GOP gains elsewhere.

Yet new maps in Texas and Missouri — drafted in unusual mid-decade redistricting efforts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections — are meant to enable Republican victories by manipulating how districts are drawn. Civil rights advocates, leaders and affected voters say that amounts to race-based gerrymandering, something the Supreme Court has blocked when it finds minority communities are effectively prevented from electing representatives of their choice.

“It’s almost like a redistricting civil war,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson, whose organization is suing to block the Texas and Missouri plans.

Kansas City residents worry they’ll ‘be cut short’

In redistricting lingo, it’s called “packing and cracking.” Those maneuvers are at the heart of Trump’s push for friendlier GOP districts as he tries to avoid reprising 2018, when midterms yielded a House Democratic majority that stymied his agenda and impeached him twice.

Because nonwhite voters lean Democratic and white voters tilt Republican, concentrating certain minorities into fewer districts — packing — can reduce the number of minority Democrats in a legislative body. By spreading geographically concentrated minority voters across many districts — cracking — it can diminish their power in choosing lawmakers.

The elder Cleaver, seeking an 11th term, said the Trump-driven plans foster an atmosphere of intimidation and division, and he and fellow Kansas City residents fear the city could lose federal investments in infrastructure, police and other services.

“We will be cut short,” said Meredith Shellner, a retired nurse who predicted losses in education and health care access. “I just think it’s not going to be good for anybody.”

New maps target Black lawmakers’ districts

Missouri’s U.S. House delegation has six white Republicans and two Black Democrats. The new map, which could still require voter approval if a referendum petition is successful, sets the GOP up for a 7-1 advantage.

Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe says the new map better represents Missouri’s conservative values. And sponsoring Rep. Dirk Deaton says it divides fewer counties and municipalities than the current districts.

“This is a superior map,” the Republican legislator said.

Cleaver’s current 5th District is not majority Black but includes much of Kansas City’s Black population, yielding a coalition that’s elected him to 10 terms. New lines carve Black neighborhoods into multiple districts. The new 5th District reaches well beyond the city and would make it harder for the 80-year-old Cleaver or any other Democrat to win in 2026.

Ashley Sadowski, a mother of 7- and 11-year-olds, is white but lamented the splicing means she’d cross district lines simply driving her children to school.

“Politicians are denying our children the unified voice they deserve in D.C.,” she said. “This risks their ability to access the federal resources they need to succeed. Whoever drew this map might have understood political calculations, but do you really think it’s fair to our kids?”

The congressman agreed.

“If somebody’s elected to represent areas of the school district, and they are alien to the attitudes and goals of the people who live there and attend the Kansas School District, they can’t possibly be helpful,” he said.

In Texas, Abbott insists no racism is involved

A new Texas map, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law, is designed to send five more Republicans to Washington, widening his party’s 25-13 advantage to 30-8.

The old map had 22 districts where a majority of voters identified as white only. Seven were Hispanic-majority and nine were coalition districts, meaning no racial or ethnic group had a majority. By redistributing voters, the new map has 24 white-majority districts, eight Hispanic-majority districts, two Black-majority districts and four coalition districts.

White voters in Texas lean solidly Republican. Texans elect Latino Republicans and Democrats, but minority coalition districts have trended to Democrats. Abbott insists new boundaries will produce more Latino representatives. But they’ll likely reduce the number of Black lawmakers by scrambling coalition districts that currently send Black Democrats to Washington.

Democratic Rep. Al Green was drawn out of his district and plans to move to seek another term. On the House floor, the Black lawmaker called GOP gerrymandering another chapter in a “sinful history” of Texas making it harder for nonwhites to vote or for their votes to matter. He said it would hollow out the Voting Rights Act of 1965 “if Texas prevails with these maps and can remove five people simply because a president says those five belong to me.”

The NAACP steps in with lawsuits

The NAACP has asked a federal court to block the Texas plan. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act broadly prohibits districts and other election laws that limit minority representation.

Johnson suggested Republicans are playing word games.

“Was this done for partisan reasons? Was it done for race? Or is partisanship the vehicle to cloak your racial animus and the outcomes that you’re pursuing?” he asked.

Existing law and precedent make Congress better reflect the U.S. electorate, Johnson said: “The sum total of individual experiences … should be at the table.”

Indeed, Green said that when President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, signed the Voting Rights Act, Congress had 15 nonwhite members. After the 2024 elections, he counted at least 150.

In Kansas City, worries of ‘scary’ backsliding

In Missouri, the NAACP has sued in state court under the rules controlling when the governor can call a special session. Essentially, it argues Kehoe faced no extenuating circumstance justifying a redistricting session, typically held once a decade after the federal census.

Those in Cleaver’s district say race drives the debate.

It’s a brazen attempt to disenfranchise voters of color, poor voters and voters from immigrant communities, said Bishop Donna Simon, of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, who’s based in Kansas City. “We’ve already lost so much over the last few years as the gap between working people and those at the top of the economic ladder has grown wider and wider,” Simon said.

Saundra Powell, a 77-year-old retired teacher, framed the redistricting effort as backsliding.

She recalls as a first-grader not being able to attend the all-white school three blocks from her home. She changed schools only after the Supreme Court declared segregated schools unconstitutional in 1954.

“It seems worse (now) than what it was,” Powell said.

Her ancestors, she added, left the Jim Crow South for more rights and a better life.

“And now when people don’t take it seriously,” she said, “it can be taken away.”

___

Barrow reported from Atlanta. Associated Press reporter John Hanna contributed from Topeka, Kan.

Heather Hollingsworth, Bill Barrow And Nick Ingram, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — With the Federal Reserve widely expected Wednesday to reduce its key interest rate by a quarter-point to about 4.1%, economists and Wall Street investors will be looking for signals about next steps: How deeply might the Fed cut in the next few months?

There are typically two different approaches the central bank takes to lowering borrowing costs: Either a measured pace that reflects a modest adjustment to its key rate, or a much more rapid set of cuts as the economy deteriorates in an often-doomed effort to stave off recession.

For now, most economists expect it will take the first approach: What many analysts call a “recalibration” of rates to keep the economy growing and businesses hiring. Under this view, the Fed would reduce rates as many as five times by the middle of next year, bringing its rate closer to a level that neither stimulates or slows the economy.

Wall Street traders expect three reductions this year and then two more by next June, according to futures pricing tracked by CME Fedwatch.

A rate cut Wednesday would be the first in nine months. The Fed, led by Chair Jerome Powell, reduced borrowing costs three times last year. But it then put any further cuts on hold to evaluate the impact of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on the economy.

As recently as their last meeting in late July, Powell described the job market as “solid” and kept rates unchanged as officials sought to take more time to see how the economy evolved.

Since then, however, the government has reported a sharp slowdown in hiring, and previous government data has been revised much lower. Employers actually cut back slightly on their payrolls in June, shedding 13,000 jobs, and added just 22,000 in August.

The government also said last week that its estimate of job gains for the year ended in March 2025 would likely be revised down by 911,000, a sharp reduction in total employment. Powell and other Fed officials had previously pointed to a robust job market as a key reason that they could afford to keep rates unchanged. But with businesses pulling back on hiring, the economic case for a rate cut — which can spur more borrowing and spending — is stronger.

The downward revision of nearly a million jobs is a “huge downgrade,” said Talley Leger, chief market strategist at the Wealth Consulting Group. “If that doesn’t light a fire under the Fed just from an economic perspective I don’t know what will.”

Still, inflation remains stubbornly elevated, partly because tariffs have lifted the cost of some goods, such as furniture, appliances and food. Prices rose 2.9% in August from a year earlier, the government said last week, up from 2.7% a month earlier.

Persistent inflation could keep the Fed from cutting too rapidly. The central bank will release its quarterly economic projections after the meeting Wednesday, and many economists forecast they will show that officials expect three total reductions this year and at least two more next year.

Five reductions would bring the Fed’s key rate down to just above 3%. Many economists think that is roughly the rate that would neither stimulate nor slow the economy.

If Fed officials began to worry the economy would slip into recession, they would likely cut rates more quickly. But for now, most economists don’t see rapid cuts as necessary.

“We’re not at a break-glass moment,” said Vincent Reinhart, chief economist at BNY Investments. “This is a recalibration.”

Christopher Rugaber, The Associated Press

First came Texas, then California, then Missouri. President Donald Trump’s call to redraw U.S. House districts ahead of the 2026 elections has led to a wave of political maneuvering among state-level Republicans and Democrats that continues to unfold across the country.

Politicians are reshaping congressional voting districts — a task typically done just once a decade, after each census — in an effort to give their parties’ candidates an edge in next year’s elections. The stakes are high because Democrats need to gain just three seats to wrest control of the House from Republicans, who are trying to buck a historical pattern of the president’s party losing seats in midterm elections.

The redistricting efforts have triggered protests, petition drives, ad campaigns and lawsuits.

Here’s what to know about the redistricting battle.

Missouri activists push for referendum on new US House map

Missouri became the latest state to take action when the Republican-led Legislature last week brushed aside Democratic objections and passed new U.S. House districts aimed at helping Republicans win seven of the state’s eight districts, one more than they currently hold. Republicans are targeting Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver by shifting portions of his Kansas City district into neighboring ones and stretching the remainder into rural Republican areas.

Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe has said he will sign the measure into law soon. Opponents already have begun gathering petition signatures seeking to force a statewide referendum on the new map. They have until Dec. 11 to submit around 110,000 valid signatures, which would put the map on hold until a public vote.

A referendum normally would occur in November 2026 — too late to use the districts in that same election. But state lawmakers could set an earlier referendum, potentially coinciding with April 7 municipal elections.

The new map already faces several lawsuits. One brought by the NAACP contends no “extraordinary occasion” existed for Kehoe to call lawmakers into session for redistricting. Two others brought by voters contend mid-decade redistricting isn’t allowed under the Missouri Constitution.

California ballot measure attracts big-money campaigns

Californians are seeing a steady stream of TV and mail ads aimed at undecided voters in advance of a Nov. 4 referendum on new U.S. House districts. The proposal, backed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic state lawmakers, is intended to help Democrats win five additional seats in California to offset Trump’s moves in Texas to try to gain five Republican districts.

In one TV ad from Newsom, a narrator intones: “Save democracy.” Newsom has largely presented the election as a referendum on Trump — who is widely unpopular in the state outside of his loyal conservative base — while avoiding technical discussions about reshaping districts. Teachers, nurses and other labor groups have been among the largest donors to Newsom’s committee.

Opponents of the proposal, known as Proposition 50, warn in a rival ad that it represents “a direct attack on democracy” that would undercut the work of an independent commission previously approved by voters. The opposition campaign has received more than $30 million from Republican donor Charles Munger Jr., who also had spent tens of millions to support the original ballot initiative giving redistricting power to the independent commission. Former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has spoken out against the revised districts.

Staging the statewide election is projected to cost taxpayers roughly $280 million.

Texas delegation to Congress will have some new faces

The new Texas congressional map, passed by the Republican-led Legislature, quickly drew federal lawsuits and set off jockeying among both Democrats trying to hang on to their seats and Republicans trying to get to Congress.

The NAACP, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the League of United Latin American Citizens have all asked a federal court to block the new map as discriminatory against minority voters. A hearing is scheduled to begin Oct. 1 on whether the districts are legal and can go into effect.

The political fallout has been swift. Democrat Rep. Lloyd Doggett, 78, of Austin chose to retire after three decades in the House rather than face a primary against 36-year-old two-term Rep. Greg Casar, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Casar’s current district has been redrawn to favor Republicans.

In Houston, longtime Democratic Rep. Al Green has said he intends to run next year but hasn’t said whether he will do so in his current redrawn district that now favors Republicans or try to move to a new, majority-Black district that currently lacks an incumbent.

In the Dallas area, Democratic Reps. Jasmine Crockett, Marc Veasey and Julie Johnson’s current districts are being squeezed into two.

More states could redraw US House districts in coming months

Pressure from Trump to redraw House districts has been mounting on Indiana Republicans. Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, said Tuesday that a legislative session on redistricting probably will happen, and it could come as soon as November.

Ohio and Utah also could have new congressional maps by then.

A Utah judge last month struck down the House districts adopted after the 2020 census because the Republican-led Legislature circumvented an independent redistricting commission established by voters. The Legislature faces a Sept. 25 target to release a new proposal for public comment, with a final vote expected in October and court approval of a new map in November.

Ohio’s constitution requires new House districts because the ones adopted after the 2020 census didn’t have sufficient bipartisan support. If bipartisan consensus remains elusive, Republican lawmakers in November could adopt revised districts without need of any Democratic votes.

Elected leaders in other states also are considering mid-decade redistricting, including Republicans in Florida and Kansas and Democrats in Maryland and New York.

New gerrymandering could disrupt national political equilibrium

The push to redraw districts for partisan advantage — a process known as gerrymandering — is unfolding during a time of unusual political balance in Congress.

The 220-215 House majority that Republicans won over Democrats in the 2024 elections aligns almost perfectly with the share of the vote the two parties received in districts across the U.S., according to a recent Associated Press analysis.

Although Democrats and Republicans each benefited from the way districts were drawn in particular states, those advantages essentially canceled each other out. When adding results from all states, the AP’s analysis showed that Democrats nationwide won just a fraction of a seat more than expected last year. Because congressional seats aren’t allotted by fractions, the net result was that each party’s share of House seats corresponded with their share of the votes.

David A. Lieb, Michael R. Blood And Jim Vertuno, The Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Democratic state lawmaker who is promising to be a “wild card” joined Wisconsin’s open race for governor on Wednesday, saying she will focus on a progressive agenda to benefit the working class.

State Rep. Francesca Hong, who lives in the liberal capital city of Madison, is embracing her outsider status. In addition to serving in the state Assembly, Hong works as a bartender, dishwasher and line cook. As a single mother struggling with finding affordable housing, she said she is uniquely relatable as a candidate.

“I like considering myself the wild card,” Hong said. “Our campaign is going to look at strategies and movement building, making sure we are being creative when it comes to our digital strategies.”

Part of her goal will be to expand the electorate to include voters who haven’t been engaged in past elections, she said.

Hong, 36, joins a field that doesn’t have a clear front-runner. Other announced Democratic candidates including Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and state Sen. Kelda Roys. Additional Democrats are considering getting in, including Attorney General Josh Kaul.

On the Republican side, Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann and suburban Milwaukee business owner Bill Berrien are the only announced candidates. Other Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and state Senate President Mary Felzkowski, are considering running.

The race to replace Gov. Tony Evers, who is retiring after two terms, is open with no incumbent running for the first time since 2010.

Hong is the most outspoken Democrat to join the field. She is known to use profanity when trying to make a point, especially on social media.

Hong is one of four Democrats in the Wisconsin Assembly who also are members of the Socialist Caucus.

“We’re meeting a moment that requires a movement and not an establishment candidate,” she said.

She promised to make working class people the center of her campaign while embracing progressive policies. That includes backing universal child care, paid leave, lower health care costs, improving wages for in-home health care workers and adequately funding public schools.

Like other Democrats in the race, Hong is highly critical of President Donald Trump’s administration and policies.

“It’s important to refer to the administration not as an administration but authoritarians who aim to increase mass suffering and harm working class families across the state,” Hong said. “A lot of communities are scared for their families, for their communities, how they’re going to continue to make ends meet when they’re worried about health care and salaries.”

Hong was elected to the state Assembly in 2020 and ran unopposed in both 2022 and 2024.

The Democratic primary is 11 months away in August 2026, and the general election will follow in November.

Scott Bauer, The Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state who rejected Donald Trump’s call to help overturn the state’s 2020 election results, said Wednesday that he’s running for governor in 2026.

The wealthy engineering entrepreneur might appeal most to business-oriented Republicans who once dominated GOP primaries in Georgia, but he is pledging a strongly conservative campaign even while he remains scorned by Trump and his allies. Raffensperger’s entry into the field intensifies the primary in a state with an unbroken line of Republican governors since 2002.

“I’m a conservative Republican, and I’m prepared to make the tough decisions. I follow the law and the Constitution, and I’ll always do the right thing for Georgia no matter what,” Raffensperger said in an announcement video.

Raffensperger defied Trump’s wrath to win reelection in 2022, but he will again test GOP primary voters’ tolerance for a candidate so clearly targeted by the president. His first challenge may be to even qualify for the primary. Georgia’s Republican Party voted in June to ban Raffensperger from running under its banner, although the party chairman said that attempt might not go anywhere.

Two other top Republicans are already in the race — Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and Attorney General Chris Carr. Jones swore himself to be a “duly elected and qualified” elector for Trump in 2020 even though Democrat Joe Biden had been declared the state’s winner. Carr sided with Raffensperger in rejecting challenges to the results. Other Republicans include Clark Dean, Scott Ellison and Gregg Kirkpatrick.

On the Democratic side, top candidates include former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, state Sen. Jason Esteves and former state Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond. Geoff Duncan, who like Raffensperger spurned Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election as Republican lieutenant governor, entered the governor’s race Tuesday as a Democrat.

Raffensperger pledges what he calls a “bold conservative agenda,” including eliminating the state income tax, capping property taxes for seniors, banning drugs that block puberty from gender-affirming care and purging “woke curriculums” from schools. He also promises to work with Trump to increase jobs, deport immigrants with criminal records and “restore law and order.”

An introvert in the national spotlight

Although he starts later than other candidates, Raffensperger benefits from an electorate that already knows him, plus an ability to finance his own campaign. The 70-year-old sold his concrete reinforcement company, Tendon Systems, for an undisclosed amount in 2023.

Raffensperger, was securely inside the conservative fold before his insistence on honoring the 2020 election results turned the introverted engineer into an unlikely national figure. He opposed abortion and pushed tax cuts as a state legislator, running for secretary of state in 2018 on a platform that emphasized managerial competence. During that race, one of his three sons, Brenton Raffensperger, died at age 27 from a fentanyl overdose.

He spent most of his first two years in office battling lawsuits filed by Democrats that fruitlessly alleged Georgia, under then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp, engaged in illegal voter suppression in 2018 in Kemp’s victory over Democrat Stacey Abrams. Raffensperger also was tasked to roll out new Dominion voting machines for a 2020 election thrown off-kilter by the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden’s narrow win in Georgia changed things. Raffensperger said publicly that he wished Trump had won, but firmly held that he saw no evidence of widespread fraud or voting irregularities. Trump and his partisans ratcheted up attacks.

In his 2021 book, “Integrity Counts,” Raffensperger recounted death threats texted to his wife, an encounter with men whom he suspected of staking out his home, and being escorted out of the Georgia Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as a handful of protesters entered the building on the day many more protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol.

But it was a phone call days earlier, on Jan. 2, that wrote Raffensperger’s name into history. Trump pressured the secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes” — enough to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the state, repeatedly citing disproven claims of fraud and raising the prospect of “criminal offense” if officials didn’t change the vote count, according to a recording of the conversation.

Raffensperger pushed back, noting that lawsuits making those claims had been fruitless.

“We don’t agree that you have won,” Raffensperger told Trump.

Post-2020 political career

That refusal to buckle made Raffensperger a huge political target. Lawmakers outlawed a repeat of his decision to mail absentee ballot applications to voters and restricted the use of absentee ballot drop boxes. They stripped him of his post chairing the State Election Board, eventually creating a Trump-aligned body whose attempts to assert control of election processes were shot down by courts. Trump endorsed U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, who objected to Georgia’s electoral votes being counted for President Joe Biden, to challenge Raffensperger in the 2022 Republican primary.

If Raffensperger was rattled, he didn’t change his public style. He stuck to a campaign of quiet speeches before civic club members dozing off after a heavy lunch. Voters renominated him, including thousands who previously voted in Democratic primaries but cast ballots in the GOP contest. He then cruised to reelection over a Democrat.

Jeff Amy, The Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Joel Willett, a military veteran and former CIA officer, launched his Democratic campaign for the U.S. Senate from Kentucky on Wednesday, saying the recent fallout from having his security clearance revoked by the Trump administration gave him added incentive to run.

“I’ve seen firsthand how the Trump administration and their far-right allies are trying to weaponize the government against anyone who disagrees with them,” Willett said in a campaign news release. “That just made me more determined to run.”

Willett, who grew up in a Louisville suburb, sounded populist themes in a state that’s been trending Republican. He denounced tax cuts for the wealthy and Medicaid cuts that he says will cause millions of Americans to lose health insurance. Willett joins a growing field of candidates vying for the Senate seat held by longtime Republican powerbroker Mitch McConnell, who is not seeking reelection in 2026.

It’s been more than 30 years since a Democrat last won election to the Senate from the Bluegrass State, and on the Republican side, the spending has quickly escalated for TV ad purchases by some of the candidates and by outside groups trying to influence the outcome.

Willett touted his career that has already spanned the military, the CIA and the business world.

As a CIA officer, Willett spent time in the White House situation room under then-President Barack Obama before leaving the government. Willett was recently among 37 current and former national security officials to have their security clearances rescinded by the Trump administration. Some were among the national security professionals who signed onto a 2019 letter that criticized Trump and that was recently highlighted online by influential Trump ally Laura Loomer. Willett was among them.

A memo from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accused those singled out of having engaged in the “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” to advance personal or partisan goals, failing to safeguard classified information, failing to “adhere to professional analytic tradecraft standards” and other unspecified “detrimental” conduct. The memo did not offer evidence to back up the accusations.

Willett said his security clearance was revoked two weeks after his name was mentioned in an article about possible Senate candidates in Kentucky. After the revocation, he received online attacks that included death threats, he said.

Willett didn’t hold back in criticizing Trump and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Wednesday.

“Right now, we live in a country where a president and his director of national intelligence think they can use all their power and all their trolls online to shut people up who disagree with them,” Willett said in a video accompanying his campaign announcement. “Well, I didn’t shut up.”

Willett, 41, joined the Kentucky Army National Guard when he was 17, in the months following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and later served in the Army’s Military Police Corps, according to his campaign biography.

After his career in government, he became a business executive, including stints as president of a consumer electronics manufacturing business and as CEO of an engineering services firm that helped the Navy build destroyers, the bio says.

In his campaign video, Willett said he’s lived the “American dream” but added that for many Kentuckians ”that dream is dead. Because they get steamrolled by a political and economic system that thinks they don’t matter. Costs go up and never come down. Tax cuts go to the ultrawealthy … while millions are kicked off Medicaid.”

Willett decried the “ugly and violent” climate in current American politics.

“That goes against everything America stands for,” he said in the campaign release. “I’ve dedicated most of my life to protecting the country — and the democracy — I love, and I’m not stopping now.”

Other Democrats in the Senate race include state lawmaker Pamela Stevenson and Logan Forsythe, an attorney and former U.S. Secret Service agent.

Forsythe, who entered the race Tuesday, said Republicans are “creating a crisis for families” with cuts to Medicaid and food assistance. He said Trump’s tariffs have hit Kentucky hard, punishing the bourbon industry and squeezing farmers. Meanwhile, Kentucky’s term-limited Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear is widely seen as preparing for a potential run for the White House in 2028.

Republicans in the race include U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron and businessman Nate Morris. The GOP hopefuls speak glowingly of Trump, hoping to land his endorsement in a state that Trump overwhelmingly carried in the last three presidential elections.

Kentucky hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since Wendell Ford in 1992.

Bruce Schreiner, The Associated Press