Actress Ashley Judd will deliver a speech in Washington, D.C. on Friday about women’s reproductive health, a possible indication that she will jump into Kentucky’s political waters and run against U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Judd will speak at an event hosted by the George Washington School of Public Health and Health Services called “Progress and Perspectives: Women’s Reproductive Health, a conversation with Ashley Judd,” USA Today reported Monday.
She has already openly flirted with a run against the highest ranking Republican in the Senate. Politico reported last week that the Kentucky native — she now lives in Tennessee — had met with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Republicans, anticipating a run by Judd, have already come out swinging.
American Crossroads ran an ad mocking her. McConnell’s campaign released internal polls in December that showed Judd trailing McConnell by a mere four points initially, with the senator’s lead widening to a whopping twenty points when voters were made aware that she lives in Tennessee and Scotland, not Kentucky, and that her own grandmother called her a “Hollywood liberal,” among other things.
Still, the Golden Globe nominee is seen as a possibly strong competitor, and one of few Democrats who could raise enough money to compete against McConnell’s $7 million campaign war chest.