Democrat Amy McGrath defeated Charles Booker in a close Senate primary race in Kentucky shaped in its final stretch by a reckoning over systemic racism, NBC News projected. 

McGrath led Booker by about 2 percentage points as the state counted the final mail-in ballots a week after the election. She will try to unseat Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a November election closely watched by Democrats who hold a special ire for the top GOP senator.

McGrath, a 45-year-old White Marine veteran, once seemed to have a tight grip on the election on the strength of more than $40 million in fundraising. But Booker, a 35-year-old Black state representative, gained traction as he joined recent protests against police violence and racism — including the March police shooting of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, in his hometown of Louisville.

As the coronavirus pandemic led certain states to expand voting by mail to promote safety, Kentucky expected roughly 800,000 votes by mail — many of them cast days before the election, according to The Washington Post. In the Democratic Senate primary, Booker fared significantly better among voters who cast their ballots in person than those who did so by mail. Read more at CNBC