Thoroughbred trainer Dale Romans enters the Kentucky Senate race

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Longtime thoroughbred trainer Dale Romans on Wednesday entered the Kentucky campaign to succeed Republican Mitch McConnell in the U.S. Senate, portraying himself as an independent Democrat willing to cut through “partisan nonsense” and tackle trade, health care and immigration.

Romans criticized President Donald Trump’s tactics in his immigration crackdown and pointed to his decades of work alongside immigrant laborers who toil for long hours cleaning stalls and performing other labor-intensive tasks tending to horses at racetracks.

“I’ve traveled around the world, but I also saw the plight of the immigrant workforce we needed back here,” Romans said in an introductory campaign video. “The ones that are here working, doing jobs that are necessary in this country. We need those people. We don’t need a fight, we need a fix.”

Romans said the nation’s borders must be secured and that people living in the United States illegally who commit crimes should be sent back to their home countries. But raids by immigration agents under the Republican administration, he said, have created fear and resentment in targeted communities, sometimes ensnaring innocent residents while hurting businesses and the economy.

With more than 2,250 career victories as a trainer, including in the Preakness Stakes and Travers Stakes, Romans said he knows how to win as an underdog.

Romans joins a large field of Republicans and Democrats competing in 2026 for the Senate seat held since the mid-1980s by McConnell, who is retiring when his current term ends. Kentucky’s primary election is in May.

“We need a senator who reflects our people,” Romans said in a news release. “Not polished insiders or party-line politicians running the same old partisan nonsense, but someone who has built a career the hard way and lived the struggles that Kentucky’s working families face every day.”

Romans stressed his working-class background and said he would protect workers and businesses from overregulation and “destructive” tariffs. He pledged to take action to make Kentucky more affordable. Affordability was a key issue in Democratic victories in last week’s elections in places such as Virginia and New Jersey.

He said he would work to strengthen Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act so more people get health care coverage without it draining household budgets.

Romans enters the race with considerable name recognition among horse racing fans in the Bluegrass State, which prides itself as the world’s horse capital. He has been a longtime fixture at Churchill Downs in Louisville, his hometown, and he trained 12 horses for the Kentucky Derby.

Romans tried to distance himself from his national party, a recognition of Kentucky’s swing toward Republicans in recent years. Kentucky has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since Wendell Ford in 1992.

“As an independent Democrat, I won’t be beholden to the national party, and I won’t be a puppet of the president like a freshman Republican senator would be,” Romans said.

Other Democrats in the Senate race include Amy McGrath, a retired Marine aviator; Pamela Stevenson, a state lawmaker and former military judge advocate general; Logan Forsythe, an attorney and former U.S. Secret Service agent; and Joel Willett, a military veteran and former CIA officer.

Republicans in the race include U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron and business entrepreneur Nate Morris. The GOP hopefuls speak glowingly of Trump, hoping to land his endorsement in a state that Trump overwhelmingly carried in the past three presidential elections.