Ashley Judd Passes on Senate Run in Kentucky

After a high-profile flirtation with a Senate race, the actress Ashley Judd announced Wednesday that she would not seek the Democratic nomination in 2014 from Kentucky.

“I realize that my responsibilities and energy at this time need to be focused on my family,” Ms. Judd wrote to her 171,000 followers in a Twitter message on Wednesday afternoon. “Regretfully, I am currently unable to consider a campaign for the Senate.”

Ms. Judd’s interest in the seat, held by Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, drew national attention, a foretaste of the media barrage that one of her champions, Representative John Yarmuth, Democrat of Kentucky, predicted if she took the plunge. Mr. Yarmuth and others hoped it would unleash a gusher of campaign donations from across the country.

But Ms. Judd, 44, who campaigned last year for President Obama, was also the target of fierce pre-emptive attacks by Republicans. Some Democratic strategists in Kentucky also expressed worries that her liberal views would be too unpopular in a state Mr. Obama lost by 23 percentage points in November. The strategists fretted that a loss by Ms. Judd to Mr. McConnell, a five-term senator, would drag down other Democrats on the state ballot and threaten the party’s control of the Kentucky House of Representatives.

Ms. Judd, who spent part of her youth in Ashland, Ky., but now lives in Tennessee, was mocked by Republicans, including the strategist Karl Rove, as a carpetbagger and “radical Hollywood liberal.”

But as a measure of how much Mr. McConnell seemed wary of her, he commissioned an early poll attempting to highlight her vulnerabilities and produced an attack ad of his own.

Ms. Judd had seemed seriously poised to enter the race. She met with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and hired experienced consultants in Washington and New York. She indicated she would announce her intentions near Kentucky Derby Day in early May.

Her Twitter decision was unexpected. “I have spoken to so many Kentuckians over these last few months who expressed their desire for a fighter for the people and new leader,” she wrote. “While that won’t be me at this time, I will continue to work as hard as I can to ensure the needs of Kentucky families are met by returning this Senate seat to whom it rightfully belongs: the people and their needs, dreams and great potential. Thanks for even considering me as that person and know how much I love our Commonwealth. Thank you!”