Bill Clinton’s first 2014 stop: Kentucky

Bill Clinton’s first election year stop will take him to Kentucky to try to help knock off Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell.

Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes told the Louisville Courier-Journal on Friday that the former president would be coming to the Bluegrass State to campaign for her on Feb. 25. 

{mosads}“We are very excited to have President Clinton coming into town to make his first campaign stop of this election cycle,” Grimes said in an interview. “I was elated when he called and said he wanted to make this race his top priority.” 

Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of State, is locked in a tough contest against the sitting Senate minority leader. A Bluegrass Poll conducted for local papers and TV stations released Thursday showed her notching a four-percentage-point lead over the incumbent, as McConnell’s approval in the commonwealth has nosedived. Grimes also led McConnell’s GOP primary challenger Matt Bevin by five points. 

The relationship between the Clintons and the Lundergans stretches back decades. The candidate’s father, Jerry Lundergan, is a former state party chairman who led Clinton’s presidential campaigns in the state. Clinton carried Kentucky twice, the last Democrat to do so. Clinton had also cut a video that played at Lundergan Grimes’s campaign kickoff last summer. 

Democrats hope the famously folksy former president could be a boon for them on the campaign trail, where he’s a frequent surrogate, particularly in GOP-leaning states, where President Obama’s approval ratings aren’t strong. 

Grimes added that Clinton’s decision to make Kentucky his first stop during the midterms “speaks volumes about the momentum behind my candidacy and our campaign.”