(The following is a statement from Mike Broihier after the primary results were announced.)
Our Mission Continues
My name is Mike Broihier. I’m a retired Marine Lt. Colonel, educator, newspaper editor, and farmer from Lincoln County, Kentucky.
One year ago, my wife Lynn and I decided we could not allow Mitch McConnell to continue to neglect Kentucky and destroy our democracy.
We knew we had to do something. We knew Mitch McConnell had to be defeated. So we decided to run for United States Senate.
When we launched this campaign, we had no money, no donor network or fundraising apparatus, no name recognition, no political relationships, and no campaign staff. And we faced powerful out-of-state special interests who conspired to force their chosen candidate on the people of Kentucky.
Despite these daunting odds, tens of thousands of Kentuckians joined our campaign and locked arms in a mission to beat Mitch and bring about real change — and what started as an idea turned into a movement.
We were endorsed by over 45 major community leaders across Kentucky.
We were endorsed by Indivisible chapters in every corner of the state — and we were endorsed by world-renowned writer, activist, and farmer Wendell Berry.
And our movement took off nationally too — we were endorsed by Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson, and Richard Ojeda. Our campaign was profiled in Rolling Stone and Newsweek and over 30 national podcasts.
We raised over a half a million dollars from over 10,000 grassroots contributions — which enabled us to get our message up on television, on the radio, on social media, and in folks’ mailboxes all across Kentucky.
Our campaign grew to over 65 incredible campaign staff — almost all of whom did not take a dime in pay because they wanted every grassroots donation to go directly to reaching Kentucky voters.
By the time the election came around, we had done over 200 local press interviews; we’d hosted over 125 virtual town halls and livestreams with voters; and we’d made over 1 million direct voter contacts across Kentucky — all in the midst of a global pandemic.
Though we came up short in the final results, our movement notched many important victories along the way.
We showed that you don’t need to have political connections or rich friends or establishment backing to run a competitive statewide campaign in Kentucky.
We built a movement of veterans, teachers, farmers, activists, students, workers and Kentuckians who stood together to vote for hope, for change, and for what they believed in — not what any outside force told them to believe in.
We strengthened our democratic process by making a debate happen.
We shaped the conversation on big bold policy ideas like a Universal Basic Income and a Criminal Justice Overhaul Commission — and we got Kentuckians talking about these ideas in all 120 counties.
We gave an emergency Universal Basic Income to a Kentucky family in need to demonstrate the power of UBI.
Maybe best of all, our campaign scared Mitch McConnell into passing stimulus checks for all Americans at the onset of the pandemic — something that literally changed millions of lives all across this country.
If the Broihier Brigade was able to accomplish all of this in just the last few months, just imagine everything we’ll accomplish for Kentucky and for our country over the years ahead.
But the next mission for the Broihier Brigade is this: defeat Mitch McConnell in the general election.
After all, this movement was never about me or any one person — it is about the voters of Kentucky standing together to beat Mitch and save our state.
So though I will not be the Democratic nominee for Senate, I am asking every member of the Broihier Brigade across Kentucky to suit up and get to work — because we will need all hands on deck to beat Mitch McConnell this fall. The stakes are too high for anyone to sit on the sidelines.
I congratulate Lt. Col. Amy McGrath on becoming the Democratic nominee — I will vote for Amy McGrath this November and I’m asking every member of the Broihier Brigade to do the same.
Beyond that, I’ll specifically be reaching out to farmers, teachers, and veterans in all 120 counties — folks with whom I share a common life experience — to make sure they vote against Mitch McConnell in November. My message to them: even if you normally vote Republican, or if you normally don’t vote, this election is not a normal election. Mitch McConnell is not a normal Republican. He is a unique threat to everyone in our state and our country. The stakes are too high to let him ride to a seventh term in the United States Senate.
We will take on this mission with the same courage, character, respect and honesty with which we ran our primary campaign — after all, that’s what Kentuckians are looking for.
Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this mission. Thank you for your work. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for your dedication. Thank you for your heart. It means the world to me and Lynn.
Now, the mission continues. Onward.
Mike Broihier
Chicken Bristle Farm
Lincoln County, KY