The parents of Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes visited the White House before she announced her run in Kentucky, according to the Hill.
Grimes is battling to distance herself from Mr. Obama and his policies, which are wildly unpopular in Kentucky, in her quest to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican.
White House visitors’ logs show Ms. Grimes’ parents, Jerry and Charlotte, visited the White House on Dec. 12, 2012.
Jerry Lundergan insisted that he and his wife visited the White House solely to look at the Christmas decorations and did not meet Mr. Obama.
“We had a White House tour. I didn’t meet with the president,” he told the Hill. “Me and my wife were at the White House to have a tour of the Christmas decorations like anybody else would. I had no meeting with the president.
“My wife wanted to see the Christmas decorations.
“There were thousands of people there. It was moving room only. It wasn’t a special tour,” he said. “The only president of the United States I’ve met there is one called William Jefferson Clinton.”
His explanation echoed Ms. Grimes’ stump speeches in which she has sought distance from Mr. Obama by calling herself a “Clinton Democrat.”
Grimes’ parents visited the White House shortly after she told a Kentucky television station that national Democrats had urged her to run for Senate. Ms. Grimes formally announced her campaign in July of 2013.
Demcorats considered Ms. Grimes a top recruit for the midterm elections. She put Kentucky in play, making it one of the few vulnerable Republican seats in a year where Democrats are struggling and in jeopardy of losing their majority control of the upper chamber.
Mr. McConnell widened his lead over Ms. Grimes to 8 points, 39 percent to 47 percent, in an NBC News/Marist Poll released Sunday. Most polls have showed a much closer race, including a NBC News/Marist poll in May that showed Mr. McConnell with a 1-point lead, 46 percent to 45 percent.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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