Next November, Sen. Mitch McConnell is out – and Col. Pamela Stevenson wants in.
Stevenson, currently Kentucky’s State House Minority Leader, announced this week that she’ll be running to succeed McConnell in the U.S. Senate. His constituents are fed up, she asserts, and she wants to offer them something new, something different.
“One Republican that spoke with me said he served in the military, and he doesn’t like what’s being done. The others, they just want to take care of their families – like, ‘Can y’all stop fighting and give us what we need to take care of our families?’” she told the Lexington Herald-Leader.
She added of her prospective appeal to residents: “Both Democrats and Republicans have approached me and said, ‘You don’t know me, but I’m so glad you’re running.’”
Stevenson understands their frustration with the status quo – and is not being shy about being just as fed up with America’s current federal leadership. In a campaign launch video posted to Instagram Monday, she said that “for 40 years, Mitch McConnell watched Kentucky from 30,000 feet. I cannot believe he ever looked our people in the eye. Wielded all that power – and retired without making more of a difference in their lives.”
That sort of direct condemnation is a defining characteristic of Stevenson’s, whose fiery House speeches around issues like healthcare access, protection of public schools and more have garnered numerous local and state-level headlines. One example: She loudly took her colleagues to task recently for their support of (or complicity with) President Donald Trump’s proposed anti-trans legislation. “This House is for the people, by the people, to serve the people – and you won’t listen,” she shouted at them.
Standing up for people has always been her raison d’etre. “I fight for our elders, children, farmers, veterans and the disabled. My colleagues know they only have a problem with me if they go after them,” she stated in her campaign launch.
Stevenson boasts a lengthy career of service. Before assuming her role representing the Blue Grass State’s 43rd district in 2020, she was a U.S. Air Force judge advocate general for 27 years who retired with the rank of colonel; founder of the Stevenson Law Center, which provides legal representation to seniors and veterans pro bono; and an ordained minister who pastors, to this day, at the Baptist church in Louisville she attended as a child.
This is not the first time Stevenson has sought a higher office, either – but in her largely Conservative state, her bid for the office of state attorney general in 2023 fell flat, and Republican Russell Coleman easily carried that race. Many observers expect that McConnell will likely be replaced by a Republican. Daniel Cameron, Kentucky’s former attorney general and a McConnell protégé, last month launched his own Senate bid.
Stevenson, however, describes a rising tide of desired change, especially as “people are getting sicker” and “little towns are vanishing [while] cities are getting meaner” – and plans to ride the wave into next November.
Added Stevenson in her campaign launch: “We need someone to stop the recklessness in Washington. Someone to restore the balance of power. Someone who didn’t learn how to be a senator from Mitch McConnell.”
