Charles Booker’s Kentucky campaign connects the fight against racism with the fight for affordability

The Senate candidate says confronting America’s history of slavery and discrimination can help build coalitions around economic issues affecting working families.

Charles Booker is aware that he is a Black man and Democrat running for a U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky, a former antebellum enslaver state that is more than 84% white and has voted for every Republican candidate since 1992.

It’s for those exact reasons why Booker, the Democratic nominee seeking to succeed longtime Republican U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell in the general election against U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, believes he is the ideal candidate for the seat. Booker was the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2022 but lost to U.S. Senator Rand Paul. Now he sees a new opportunity to win over Kentucky voters.

“When you have a testimony, you want to tell it, and I’m excited to tell this story because I believe that winning this race is not only something that Kentuckians need; the country needs to see us win this way,” Charles Booker told theGrio during an extensive sit-down while fundraising in Washington, D.C., during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference, also known as “CBC Week.”

He added, “I think, globally, our allies need to see us win this way because this is how democracy is preserved.”

If elected, Booker would become Kentucky’s first Black U.S. senator and, as a Democrat in a state long dominated by Republican politics, would signal a major shift for the state.

The self-identified preacher’s kid said his childhood experience of poverty in one of Kentucky’s poorest zip codes, and in a majority-Black community, has given him a lens into the best path forward in a country that is struggling with two crises he knows well: lacking affordability and racial inequality.

“It gave me an appreciation for struggles that transcend,” Booker, a 41-year-old former Kentucky State Representative, said of his upbringing in Louisville as a multi-generation descendant of enslaved Black Kentuckians.

When asked about the country’s history of slavery, racial subjugation, and violence against Black Americans, Booker doesn’t shy away from the difficult topics for political expediency in a conservative state.

“The pain and the history that comes from Southern states speaks to how we move forward as a country. It’s in our soil, it’s in our bones, it’s generational, and, in a lot of ways, our path of healing as a country requires us to listen to the voices that are closest to the pain,” he told theGrio.

Booker instead connects issues related to racism to political power, corporate greed, and the current affordability crisis impacting most Americans this election cycle. He argued that the country doesn’t have to disaggregate or “run away” from these issues.

“We can call out the bigotry, we can call out the hate and structural issues that we’re facing, but we can also create coalitions where people can come together on the common bonds we share,” he said.

Some of those common bonds include the growing majority of the country calling out corruption committed by politicians, corporations, and the wealthy.

According to a September Gallup poll, 89% of U.S. adults say government corruption is widespread. That perception reached its highest level in 20 years.

While American voters are a lot more divided on issues like how slavery and Black history should be taught in classrooms, Booker said the issues of affordability, economic opportunity, and racial justice are all connected. He said some elected officials and wealthy individuals are to blame for it all.

“This blatant corruption that we’re seeing in our politics, where a few, the Mitch McConnell’s of the world, the Andy Barr’s of the world, are essentially trying to hoard power,” said Booker, who called out the rising wealth of elected officials who are benefiting from corporate donors and billionaires like Elon Musk, whose companies have collected $38 billion in government contracts.

Meanwhile, Booker argues, Black Americans’ civil rights and voting rights have been rolled back, and millions of Americans are struggling to afford the rising cost of living.

“Of course they would want to erase the victories of the civil rights movement because it reflects what happens when regular people come together, which is the majority of folks across this country who are looking to have more money in their pocket,” said Booker. “They’re actively trying to erase history…encapsulating it in this blatant corruption that we’re seeing in our politics.”

Booker says he’s been called many things by his critics: “progressive,” “socialist,” and even “radical.” He says his “Hood to the Holler” grassroots political movement is attracting people from every political persuasion.

“That’s how I was able to pass legislation with hardcore Trumpers in the state house. It’s how I’ve been able to build a coalition of people who voted for Trump, people who voted for Bernie Sanders, people who voted for Biden, people who have never voted,” he told theGrio. “It’s possible, and it’s the principles of organizing, community building, and that’s what this campaign is a testament to.”

Booker slammed President Donald Trump and Republicans, like McConnell, for voting to make historic cuts to health care subsidies, resulting in the looming closures of Kentucky hospitals, the war in Iran, and Trump’s tariff policies that are driving up the cost of gas, utilities, home mortgages, groceries, and everyday goods and services.

Though Trump won the state of Kentucky in the 2024 presidential election by more than 30% against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, Booker tells theGrio he believes those voters “know that things can’t go on this way.”

“I think being able to help connect that to the power of our story and our history, fighting back through organized labor—that’s something that brings Kentuckians together,” he said. “This moment gives us the chance to bring people together, and we can’t miss it.”