McConnell primary opponent Bevin once decried ‘widening ideological divide’

Businessman Matt Bevin, the Republican running to the right of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said last year that he was "disheartened" by what he saw as a growing "ideological divide" in America.

In a January 2012 e-mail obtained by Post Politics, Bevin informed supporters that he would not challenge Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth, who represents a Louisville-based district. In his note, the Republican decried what he described as growing gap in ideology and cited it as a reason he considered running.

"Over the course of the past months and years, I have becoming increasingly disheartened by the widening ideological divide that we face at every jurisdictional level of our society," he wrote. "This division threatens to fray the fabric of our nation’s future stability in every sense of that word. It could well be argued, that it already has. As a nation, the struggle between these differing visions for our future is exacting a heavy price."