Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell sweeps to victory over Alison Lundergan Grimes, Republicans win U.S. Senate

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife Elaine Chao ride in the Adairville Strawberry Festival parade while campaigning for the Republican primary May 17, 2014 in Adairville, Kentucky. Win McNamee/Getty Images

By  Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473. (Kathy Wray Coleman is a 21-year investigative and political journalist and legal reporter who trained for 17 years under five different editors at the Call and Post Newspaper

 (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, and an aggressive President Obama foe, defeated Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes 56 percent to 41 percent on Tuesday, another win following his primary victory in May against Matt Bevin, a local businessman who once appeared to be  a threat because of his support from national tea party organizations. And the Republicans won the six seats needed to wrestle control over the Democrats in the U.S. Senate

It didn't help that Grimes made international news for distancing herself and refusing to say whether she voted for Obama, the country's first Black president, though some two-thirds of Kentuckians are anti-Obama, some polls show.

The extent to which race was a factor in Kentucky, a state with an eight percent Black population, is not being debated, for now.

McConnell's  win added fodder early in the evening to the GOP bid to sweep control of the U.S. Senate as 36 Senate seats were up for grabs and eight of them are or were too close to call going in to Tuesday's election election. But by the middle of the night the Democrats had conceded defeat,  and acknowledged that the Republicans had won the six seats needed to gain control.

 The Republicans already control the U.S. House f Representatives where all 435 seats there are up for grabs, though no Democratic takeover is even a remote possibility.

Grimes had the benefit of a $50 million campaign war chest, but it was not enough to out do McConnell, who was well financed too, and swept to a sixth term.

Four years ago, McConnell watched  Rand Paul, then a local eye surgeon, defeat the candidate he was supporting, Secretary of State Trey Grayson, in the Republican primary to replace Sen. Jim Bunning, who retired.

McConnell then got behind Paul and helped him win the general election. And it paid off, as Paul supported McConnell against Grimes in a closely watched contest.

 (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com