Andy Barr’s Senate campaign this week tried to project inevitability.Instead, it projected Microsoft Excel. The headline brag was impressive: more than 100 House endorsements. Triple digits. A show of force. A campaign press release flexing like it just finished leg day. Then NBC News starte d calling people. And suddenly the endorsement list began behaving less like a coalition and more like a group text where half the participants don’t remember joining. “I’m not endorsing,” said one member’s spokesperson.“Also, they misspelled my name,” said another.And Rep. Darrell Issa — who has seen a few campaigns in his day — offered the most honest assessment: Barr had “leaned a little ahead of his skis.” That sound you heard wasn’t political momentum. It was the scrape. To be fair, Issa eventually endorsed — after NBC called. Which raises the obvious question: is that persuasion, or just customer service? Barr’s campaign insists this is all normal — endorsements shift, lists evolve, politics is messy. True enough. But there’s a difference between momentum and preemptive victory laps, and this one tripped over its own shoelaces. The irony is that Barr doesn’t actually need this kind of overreach. He’s a well-funded, well-connected congressman in a ruby-red state, running to succeed Mitch McConnell. That résumé sells itself. Padding the endorsement list just makes it look like the campaign is trying to win the argument by font size. And in a Republican primary already full of accusations about who’s the real MAGA heir and who’s just borrowing the hat, this kind of sloppiness feeds the narrative Barr probably wants least: establishment reflexes dressed up as insurgency. Nate Morris is already calling Barr a McConnell clone. Daniel Cameron is quietly letting the early polls do the talking. And now Barr’s campaign has handed them an unforced error wrapped in a press release. Kentucky voters have seen plenty of political theater. They know the difference between strength and spectacle. And they have a long memory for candidates who promise certainty before earning it. In a race this crowded, credibility is currency.You don’t inflate it.You spend it carefully. Otherwise, the only thing growing faster than your endorsement list is the correction notice. The post Andy Barr’s Math Problem: Counting Endorsements Before They Hatch appeared first on The Lexington Times. ...read more read less