Kentucky voters have some choices to make in legislative contests

Early voting begins Thursday for May 21 primary election. In-person absentee balloting is already under way.

By Mckenna Horsley | Kentucky Lantern

FRANKFORT — Kentuckians going to the polls for the May 21 pri­ma­ry have choic­es to make about who will rep­re­sent them in Frankfort, even if there’s no sus­pense about who the nom­i­nees for U.S. pres­i­dent will be.

GOP con­trol of the leg­is­la­ture is not at risk this year; Republicans have super­ma­jori­ties in both cham­bers. But there will be new­com­ers on both sides of the aisle come January when the General Assembly con­venes for the 2025 reg­u­lar session.

Republicans now hold 80 of the 100 seats in the Kentucky House and 31 of the 38 Senate seats. On the bal­lot this year are all 100 House seats and half of the Senate seats.

In the House, 14 sit­ting Republicans gar­nered Republican chal­lengers. Democrats are con­test­ing House pri­maries, espe­cial­ly in  Jefferson and Fayette coun­ties and also the 98^th District in Greenup and Boyd coun­ties where Democratic Rep. Danny Bentley is not run­ning for reelection.

And 10 House seats are up for grabs because the incum­bent decid­ed not to run for reelec­tion or in two cas­es filed to run for state Senate. Altogether, there will be con­test­ed pri­maries in 25 House districts.

In the Kentucky Senate, six Republican incum­bents have pri­ma­ry chal­lengers, includ­ing two  — Sens. Adrienne Southworth of Lawrenceburg and Johnnie Turner of Harlan — who have attract­ed two Republican rivals each.

The only Senate Democrat who has a pri­ma­ry con­test is Minority Floor Leader Gerald Neal of Louisville, who is being chal­lenged by for­mer state Rep. Attica Woodson Scott and Michael Churchill Jr.

‘Core’ voters turn out for primaries

Turnout in Kentucky pri­ma­ry elec­tions is tra­di­tion­al­ly low, and the 2024 pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry “will do lit­tle to get peo­ple to the polls,” said Stephen Voss, a polit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor at the University of Kentucky, because vot­ers under­stand that President Joe Biden and for­mer President Donald Trump will be their par­ties’ nominees.

“In a low inten­si­ty elec­tion like this, most of the vot­ers are the habit­u­al vot­ers — the ones who view it as their citizen’s duty to vote in every elec­tion or who are so engaged in pol­i­tics that they take every chance to express them­selves. So, we’re going to retreat down to the core of the most polit­i­cal­ly active Kentuckians in most places,” Voss said.

Tres Watson, a for­mer spokesper­son for the Republican Party of Kentucky, said the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry may affect GOP races in Northern Kentucky. Because Ohioans vot­ed on Super Tuesday in March, Kentucky races have an eas­i­er time in the Cincinnati media mar­ket get­ting air time and reminders to vot­ers to get to the polls. 

Northern Kentucky typ­i­cal­ly sees high­er vot­er turnout, Watson said, with “lib­er­ty” Republicans being very polit­i­cal­ly engaged while more casu­al vot­ers tend to pick cen­trist estab­lish­ment Republican candidates. 

As for what will dri­ve Democrats to the polls, Democratic strate­gist Will Carle said it will come down to the can­di­dates them­selves. “Whoever’s out there knock­ing on doors, deliv­er­ing real­ly good paid com­mu­ni­ca­tions, mak­ing  the actu­al effort to talk to vot­ers, Democratic pri­ma­ry vot­ers will come out for them.”

House party contests

The 14 House Republicans who face pri­ma­ry chal­lengers include some lib­er­ty-wing incum­bents, such as:

• Rep. Josh Calloway of Irvington who faces Julie Cantwell of Rineyville in the 10^th District . 
• Rep. Felicia Rabourn of Pendleton chal­lenged by Mark A. Gilkinson of Bedford in the 47^th District.
• Rep. Savannah Maddox of Dry Ridge who faces Jarrod M. Lykins of Walton in the 61^st District.
• Rep. Steven Doan of Erlanger chal­lenged by Diane Brown also of Erlanger in the 69^th District. 

More mod­er­ate Republicans also have drawn pri­ma­ry chal­lengers, including:

• Rep. Killian Timoney of Nicholasville who is chal­lenged by Thomas Jefferson of Lexington in the 45^th District. 
• Rep. Kimberly Poore Moser of Taylor Mill who faces Karen Campbell of Independence in the 64^th District.  The Republican win­ner in both dis­tricts will face a Democrat in November.

Several Democrats in the House are also fac­ing pri­ma­ry chal­lengers. In Jefferson County,

• Rep. Daniel Grossberg faces Mitra Subedi in the 30^th District. 
• Rep. Nima Kulkarni is chal­lenged by William Zeitz in the 40^th District. 
• Beverly Chester-Burton of Shively faces Louisvillians Daniel Deshawn Cockrell and Shreeta Waldo in the 44^th District.

 In Lexington’s Democratic primaries,

• Rep. George A. Brown Jr. faces Daniel E. Whitley in the 77^th District.
• Rep. Adrielle Camuel, who won a spe­cial elec­tion last year to fill the unex­pired term of the late Lamin Swan, is being chal­lenged by Sarah Ritter in the 93^rd District. 

The 10 open House seats — five now held by Republicans and five by Democrats — include those of Democratic Floor Leader Derrick Graham of Frankfort and long­time Republican Rep. Kevin Bratcher of Louisville who is run­ning for the Louisville Metro Council. 

Carle, who is work­ing on Jamie Palumbo’s cam­paign in Lexington’s House District 76, said that race is one to watch, as long-time Democratic Rep. Ruth Ann Palumbo is not seek­ing reelec­tion. The Democratic pri­ma­ry includes her son, James “Jamie” Palumbo, Joshua Daniel Buckman and Anne Gay Donworth. 

Carle named House District 31 in Louisville as a pos­si­ble flip for Democrats in the November gen­er­al elec­tion. It’s cur­rent­ly held by first-term Republican Rep. Susan Tyler Witten and has been favor­able to Democrats in the past. Two Democrats — Carma Bell Marshall and Colleen Orsella Davis — are com­pet­ing to chal­lenge Witten. 

Senate primary races

Four Republican sen­a­tors face pri­ma­ry chal­lengers. In Western Kentucky, Sen. Jason Howell of Murray faces Lynn Bechler of Marion in the 1^st District. Sen. Stephen Meredith of Leitchfield is being chal­lenged by Thomas Ballinger of Jetson in the 5^th District. 

In Southeastern Kentucky’s 29^th District, two Republicans, Randy Thompson of Hindman and Shawn Andrew Gilley of Jeremiah, are chal­leng­ing incum­bent Turner of Harlan.

In Central Kentucky’s 7^th District, first-term incum­bent Southworth of Lawrenceburg faces Aaron Reed and Ed Gallrein, both of Shelbyville. Gallrein has raised the most mon­ey of the three, includ­ing con­tri­bu­tions from promi­nent Republicans Senate President Robert, Stivers, Secretary of State Michael Adams and for­mer Republican Party of Kentucky chair J. “Mac” Brown.

GOP strate­gist Watson said it’s hard to see a path to reelec­tion for Southworth. Senate redis­trict­ing after the 2020 cen­sus left her only one coun­ty, Anderson, from the dis­trict that elect­ed her. Shelby County is the bulk of the new dis­trict, along with parts of Jefferson. “When you get in these rur­al dis­tricts, geog­ra­phy mat­ters and where you’re from mat­ters,” Watson said. 

Of the Senate’s three open seats, two win­ners are already deter­mined. Rep. Keturah Herron, D‑Louisville, was the only can­di­date to seek elec­tion to the 35^th District seat held by out­go­ing Sen. Denise Harper Angel, D‑Louisville. Craig Richardson, a Republicanfrom Hopkinsville, was the only can­di­date to file for the 3^rd District seat being vacat­ed by Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R‑Fruit Hill, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

In Northern Kentucky’s 11^th District, two GOP can­di­dates are com­pet­ing to suc­ceed Union Republican Sen. John Schickel, who is retir­ing from the Senate  — Rep. Steve Rawlings of Burlington and Duane Froelicher of Florence. 

The 17^th District seat being vacat­ed by Senate Republican Floor Leader Damon Thayer attract­ed two GOP can­di­dates, Julia Jaddock of Georgetown and Matt Nunn of Sadieville. The win­ner will face Democrat Kiana Fields of Georgetown in the gen­er­al elec­tion in November. 

What about November?

Looking toward the gen­er­al elec­tion in November, Voss, the polit­i­cal sci­en­tist, said this elec­tion cycle is like­ly to favor incum­bents. “It’s a sleepy elec­tion which means incum­bents like­ly will sur­vive,” Voss said. “Many of the dis­tricts where Republican incum­bents are step­ping down, the Republican elec­torate is large enough they’re like­ly to pick anoth­er mem­ber of the GOP.” 

However, Democratic chal­lengers have emerged in dis­tricts with Republican incum­bents, Voss not­ed, par­tic­u­lar­ly in areas where Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear out­per­formed in his 2023 reelection. 

A polit­i­cal par­ty can lose an elec­tion at the recruit­ment stage, Voss said. Without a viable can­di­date on the bal­lot, there’s no way to win the seat. Beshear’s suc­cess­ful reelec­tion cam­paign “like­ly encour­aged some of the can­di­da­cies we’ve seen in dis­tricts that were not Democratic slam dunks.” 

“The down­side to that is the Democratic Party has banked the main ben­e­fit of that good news by hav­ing actu­al can­di­dates on the bal­lot in these places. The next step is get­ting those can­di­dates the resources so that they can give vot­ers a real choice, that they can get their mes­sage out and the vot­ers take them seri­ous­ly enough to eval­u­ate their choic­es. And that’s what we don’t know yet.”

Carle, the Democratic strate­gist, said Democrats should look to issues Beshear tout­ed such as eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and rais­ing teacher pay in order to pick up seats in the leg­is­la­ture. “I think Gov. Beshear has done a fan­tas­tic job, and Democrats run­ning for the state house should and will be run­ning on his record of record-break­ing eco­nom­ic growth, lov­ing thy neigh­bor as thy­self and try­ing to fig­ure out ways to move Kentucky for­ward in the right direction.”