Watch Amy McGrath's Viral Announcement That She's Running Against Mitch McConnell

From ELLE

The presidential election won't be the only 2020 race dominating the news cycle for the next year and a half. On Tuesday, retired Marine and Democrat Amy McGrath announced she's officially running for a U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky, going up against controversial Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

McGrath, who became the first woman in the Marines to fly a combat mission in an F/A-18 fighter jet, released an ad that's quickly gone viral on Twitter, with over 700,000 views in three hours. In the ad, she talks about being 13 years old and writing to Sen. McConnell about her dream to fly a fighter jet in combat, something that women weren't able to do at the time.

“He never wrote back," she says to the camera. "I’m Amy McGrath, and I’ve often wondered, how many other people did Mitch McConnell never take the time to write back or even think about?” She argues that everything that's wrong in Washington D.C. can be linked to McConnell, who she says has "bit by bit, year by year, turned Washington into something we all despise."

There's more insight into her background and her potential strategy for the race on her website, which reads: "Amy became a Marine combat pilot to fight and defend her country and now she is taking the fight to Washington to solve the problems Kentuckians face in their everyday lives. Amy was a registered independent for 12 years, so she always prioritizes practical solutions over partisan interests."

While McGrath has never served in political office, she ran a much talked about campaign in 2018 against Rep. Andy Barr in Kentucky's 6th congressional district. It has long been rumored that she might choose to challenge McConnell; it's been reported that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer even encouraged her to do so.

McConnell, the longest-serving Republican leader in the U.S. Senate, and his campaign team have already run an attack ad against McGrath, tweeting it out with the message "Welcome to the race, Amy. #KYSen"

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