Rand Paul and Charles Booker nab US Senate primary wins and will face off in November

Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and Democratic former state Rep. Charles Booker breezed through their primary races Tuesday, easily winning their respective party's nomination in the battle for Paul's congressional seat.

Booker and Paul were widely seen as the frontrunners in their party's primaries, so their victories didn't come as a big surprise. But Booker made some history in Kentucky as the first Black person the Democratic Party has nominated for a U.S. Senate seat here. 

In fact, he's the first Black person the Democratic Party in Kentucky has nominated for any statewide office.

2022 Kentucky primary election results:Get the latest updates here

"Let me say this: I love y'all," he told a pumped crowd at Ten20 Craft Brewery in Louisville, where he threw his election night party. "If anybody tells you that ceilings can’t break, tell them: 'Look at Kentucky.'"

He spoke about this year's Senate race, which is now officially between him and Paul, as something bigger than the two men or any single issue. 

"This is about our future," he said. "This is about ending generational poverty. This is about grabbing racism by the roots and pulling it out. This is about healing. It's about humanity, y'all." 

Booker defeated three Democratic challengers: Joshua Wesley Blanton Sr. of Louisville, Ruth Gao of Louisville and John Merrill of McKee.

Booker had earned 77% of the vote with 5% of the vote counted when the Associated Press called the race for him at 7:11 p.m. Tuesday. By 11:30 p.m., he was sitting at 73%, with 83% of the vote counted.

Paul, who's represented Kentucky in Congress since 2011, easily dispatched his challengers in the GOP primary, which included Arnold Blankenship of Ashland, Valerie "Dr Val" Fredrick of Murray, Paul Hamilton of Nicholasville, John Schiess of Rice Lake, Wisconsin, and Tami Stainfield of Marion. 

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Paul had earned 86% of the vote, with 9% of votes counted, when the Associated Press called the race at 7:10 p.m. Tuesday. He was still sitting at 86% by 11:30 p.m., with 98% of the vote counted. 

“Kentucky, I want to thank you for voting for me to be your Republican nominee for U.S. Senate," Paul said in a statement Tuesday night. "I’m honored to serve and honored to have your vote. One more election will happen this fall, and I hope I can count on your vote again.

"As I do most weeks, I’m here in DC battling the socialists and petty tyrants. Kentucky and all of America deserve better than the massive spending, runaway debt, and crippling inflation that Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer are giving us. I’m working every day to fight back, and I hope you’ll continue to support me and vote them out this fall.”

Booker jumped into Kentucky's 2022 Senate race early, launching his campaign last July. His star rose during his 2020 campaign for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's seat, which got national attention as he joined Louisville's historic racial justice protests.

Even though he narrowly lost to Democratic frontrunner Amy McGrath in his party's primary that year, he worked to build on the momentum he had received. He founded the nonprofit advocacy group Hood to the Holler in 2020, launched his new Senate bid in 2021 and just published a memoir.

While Booker never got the chance to face off against McConnell in a fall election, Democratic voters in Kentucky decided Tuesday to give him the opportunity to do that with Paul. 

From here, an uphill battle for Booker

It'll be tough for Booker to defeat Paul in increasingly Republican Kentucky, and Paul already has a big fundraising lead.

His campaign had raked in over $18 million as of April 27, with about $8.7 million left in cash on hand. Comparatively, Booker's campaign had raised nearly $3.4 million overall as of April 27, with around $474,000 left in cash on hand.

A January poll also brought good news for Paul, with 55% of the Kentuckians surveyed saying they'd stick with him if Election Day were happening at that moment, while 39% said they'd vote for Booker and 6% were undecided.

Booker has acknowledged the difficulty of defeating a Republican incumbent like Paul in a statewide election in the Bluegrass State, but he also maintains he and other Democrats can pull it off through a grassroots-fueled campaign. 

He told reporters Tuesday night he's proud of the money his campaign has raised from Kentuckians, who live in one of America's poorest states, and noted he was way outspent in his 2020 Senate election (and still defied expectations by nearly winning his party's primary that year).

"So, this time around, we don't care about how much money they raise or throw at me," he said. "We're going to out-organize them. We'll lift up our small-dollar support. We have a lot of national support as well because allies around the country want to get rid of Rand Paul.

"We'll have every resource we need to beat him."

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Both Booker and Paul have gotten the nod from notable members of their respective parties.

For example, Booker picked up an early endorsement from retiring U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, an influential Louisville Democrat who easily won his past reelection races in Jefferson County.

Paul scored a notable early endorsement last year, too, from former President Donald Trump, who won big with Kentucky voters in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

Like Trump, Paul has a talent for making headlines. He has done that again and again during the pandemic, as he repeatedly and publicly scolded Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government's top infectious diseases expert, and cast doubt on public health experts' consensus that everyone should mask up and get vaccinated to fight COVID-19. (He has said he thinks it's advisable for people with certain risk factors to get vaccinated.)

Experts' consensus on masking has evolved, with the latest recommendations being to mask up in certain settings, such as crowded indoor areas if you live in a high-risk county.

Paul's campaign has fundraised off of his public disagreements with Fauci, as well as his opposition to mask mandates and other pandemic-related government restrictions. 

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Booker has tried to capitalize on and fundraise off of moments when Paul makes headlines for his controversial statements as well, such as a recent to-do over comments the senator made concerning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Paul and Booker both have demonstrated they're willing to speak up about sensitive topics, and there will be no shortage of them on the campaign trail this summer, from abortion to Russia to racial justice. 

Booker quickly took aim at Paul Tuesday night, telling the crowd at his election night party:

"Rand Paul is a contrarian. He’s a crisis actor. He’s a conspiracy theorist," he told them. "He stokes division. He pours gasoline on hate and then he hides his hands." 

Booker is running on an unabashedly progressive platform and has often talked about how his experiences as a Black man who grew up poor in Louisville's West End intersect with the experiences of white Kentuckians who grew up poor in rural parts of the state. 

Paul is running on a staunchly conservative platform and has a long history of talking about the need for America to protect personal liberties and to steer clear of socialism. (He literally wrote a book called "The Case Against Socialism.") He also has been a steadfast skeptic of the need for and purported benefits of U.S. military intervention in foreign conflicts.

With the primaries out of the way, the path is cleared for the two men to go head-to-head through this summer and fall. 

Morgan Watkins is The Courier Journal's chief political reporter. Contact her at mwatkins@courierjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter: @morganwatkins26.