Republican candidates rally Clark County voters

Clark County Republicans held a pep ral­ly for their team before the final game of the sea­son, on Nov. 3. 

Voters heard from can­di­dates for coun­ty gov­ern­ment offices as well as state and nation­al House seats dur­ing an event host­ed by the Republican Women’s Club Thursday at the Cardinal Community Center. 

It was adver­tised as a “meet and greet,” but each can­di­date attend­ing was giv­en a few min­utes to make their pitch, ask for sup­port, and take ques­tions and com­pli­ments from the audi­ence, allow­ing only a few min­utes after­ward to mingle. 

State representative 

With only 25 days left until the gen­er­al elec­tion, County Magistrate Daniel Konstantopoulos sug­gest­ed that turnout would be a key to win­ning the race for state rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the 73^rd District. 

“We’ve got to get out and vote . . . and we’ve got to get peo­ple to the polls,” he said. 

Konstantopoulos said it had been an hon­or to serve as coun­ty mag­is­trate for the past 12 years, and that local gov­ern­ment expe­ri­ence would “pay div­i­dends” in Frankfort because what­ev­er hap­pens in the state leg­is­la­ture “trick­les down” to the local level. 

One of his big pri­or­i­ties, he said, would be to work to get mon­ey for need­ed projects for his dis­trict, some­thing he acknowl­edged Ryan Dotson, the cur­rent rep­re­sen­ta­tive and fel­low Republican, has done. 

Another, he said, would be to resolve the issue of get­ting more state fund­ing for coun­ty jails, which have become a drain on fis­cal courts’ budgets. 

“Our coun­ty jails are hurt­ing coun­ties all over the state,” he said. “Hopefully, hav­ing the expe­ri­ence at the state lev­el, I’ll be able to add some­thing to the discussion.” 

“I’m excit­ed and look­ing for­ward to the oppor­tu­ni­ty to serve you as your next state rep,” he said. 

His Democratic oppo­nent in the con­test is Chelsea Kirk of Lexington. 

Jenny Pasley, a mem­ber of the local GOP women’s club, urged sup­port for Konstantopoulos, say­ing that, as a coun­ty leg­is­la­tor, he comes to the Fiscal Court meet­ings pre­pared with ques­tions, chal­lenges, and concerns. 

“He’ll do a great job” at the state lev­el as well, she said. 

District 1 magistrate 

Pasley also praised Scott Hisle, who is run­ning for the 1^st District magistrate’s seat Konstantopoulos is giv­ing up for a chance at a seat in the state House. He is the only mag­is­trate can­di­date fac­ing oppo­si­tion in the election. 

“Scott knows what he’s doing,” said Pasley, who served with him on the pub­lic library board. 

Like Konstantopoulos, Hisle is expe­ri­enced in local gov­ern­ment and is always well-pre­pared, she said. 

“If you vote for him, you won’t be sor­ry,” she promised. 

Hisle, who is retir­ing as the chief finan­cial offi­cer of the Freeman Corporation, served on the Clark County Board of Education dur­ing the con­struc­tion of a new sports com­plex, and is famil­iar with pub­lic finance and the bud­get­ing process. He has also served on the local parks board and the san­i­tary sew­er board. 

“I’ll be able to hit the ground run­ning. There won’t be a lot of learn­ing curve,” he said. 

One thread that has run through Hisle’s pub­lic ser­vice career has been an empha­sis on keep­ing tax­es low. 

Hisle is run­ning against Democrat Jeannie Gwynne, a long­time 911 dispatcher. 

County PVA 

Jada Brady, who is fin­ish­ing her term as coun­ty prop­er­ty val­u­a­tion admin­is­tra­tor, is chal­lenged by Democrat Jason Neely, the for­mer PVA she unseat­ed by a hand­ful of votes in 2022. 

She is seek­ing re-elec­tion to con­tin­ue the improve­ments she said she has made to the office. 

A big empha­sis has been on trans­paren­cy and edu­ca­tion of prop­er­ty own­ers about their tax­es. For exam­ple, the office’s web­site now allows landown­ers to see how their neigh­bors’ prop­er­ty is assessed so they can make com­par­isons and ask for expla­na­tions of dif­fer­ences. She also wants to add a chat­bot fea­ture so peo­ple can look at their cur­rent and pri­or years’ tax bills at the same time and ask why they are different. 

“That way, you don’t have to wait until Monday to ask that ques­tion,” she said. 

She said she just recent­ly put togeth­er a PVA class for real estate agents and is wait­ing on approval by the Bluegrass Realtors Association. 

“I’m excit­ed about what we’ve done. We’ve moved this office so far for­ward in the last four years,” she said, and she wants to con­tin­ue that progress. 

Asked by a mem­ber of the audi­ence what peo­ple can do to help her, she answered: “Prayers,” and then repeat­ed the word. 

County jailer

Chris Grant, the Republican can­di­date who is run­ning against Jailer Frank Doyle, crit­i­cized the Democratic incum­bent and his admin­is­tra­tion for “wild­ly exor­bi­tant spend­ing” and a lack of trans­paren­cy regard­ing pub­lic finances. 

He said Doyle is spend­ing $4.5 mil­lion a year on the Clark County Detention Center, but has about the same num­ber of inmates as for­mer Jailer Bobby Stone had in his last year, and Stone ran the jail for $900,000. 

Grant said he has asked for pub­lic records but hasn’t been able to obtain the doc­u­ments he requested. 

“I have no idea where all this mon­ey is going,” he said. “You can’t find out because no one will tell you.” 

The for­mer police offi­cer and radio exec­u­tive said that a jail is a busi­ness and must be run like one. 

“I believe in fis­cal con­ser­vatism,” he said. “You don’t spend mon­ey you don’t have. You don’t spend mon­ey on stuff that you don’t need.” 

You set a bud­get, and you stick to it, he added. 

County judge-executive 

Justin Charles, the Republican can­di­date for coun­ty judge-exec­u­tive, said that the Fiscal Court’s finan­cial sit­u­a­tion is not good, and his top pri­or­i­ty as CEO for the coun­ty will be “to get us on sol­id finan­cial ground.” 

“I feel like I have the ener­gy to get things done,” said Charles, who is in his mid-40s. 

This is the sec­ond time Charles has run for coun­ty judge. He was the Democratic Party’s can­di­date in 2022, and his oppo­nent is Vaché King, who lost that party’s nom­i­na­tion to Charles that year. 

Prior to the 2026 race, Charles reg­is­tered as a Republican because, he said, he had always been a conservative. 

AI data centers 

One ques­tion Charles got from some­one in the audi­ence was about where he stands on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and data centers. 

“I think we need a whole lot more infor­ma­tion” before the Fiscal Court can take a posi­tion on the issue, he said. 

He said he has nev­er seen a data cen­ter and would like to see one under construction. 

He said that giv­en the county’s cur­rent finan­cial sit­u­a­tion, he doesn’t think offi­cials should dis­miss the pos­si­bil­i­ty of “any­thing that might bring some rev­enue in.” 

“Now, if it is not what the peo­ple of this coun­ty want, I under­stand,” he said. “That’s our job . . . to rep­re­sent the peo­ple of this coun­ty and what they want.” 

Asked by a reporter whether the Fiscal Court should do as oth­er local gov­ern­ments in the region have done and impose a tem­po­rary mora­to­ri­um on devel­op­ment of data cen­ters until it can gath­er more infor­ma­tion, Charles reject­ed the idea. 

“I don’t see a need for a mora­to­ri­um. As far as I know, the coun­ty has not been approached about putting one in. Until that hap­pens, I see no rea­son for a mora­to­ri­um,” he said. “I think it’s slam­ming a door that nobody is try­ing to get through.” 

Courthouse property 

In an inter­view after the speech­es, Charles said that when the coun­ty builds a new judi­cial cen­ter with state mon­ey, los­ing the rent from the Administrative Office of the Courts for the Clark County Courthouse and the Gov. James Clark Judicial Center will be cost­ly to coun­ty gov­ern­ment, but he doesn’t want to see either build­ing demolished. 

“I’m for try­ing to find some­thing we can do with them,” he said. 

Charles also said he wants to see more coöper­a­tion between city and coun­ty governments. 

And he said he would con­tin­ue his work as an elec­tri­cian while serv­ing in pub­lic office, but would cut back on how much of that work he does. 

U.S. House 6^th District 

Dr. Ralph Alvarado, the Republican con­gres­sion­al can­di­date for the 6^th District, dis­par­aged his Democratic oppo­nent, Zach Dembo, a for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor who left the Department of Justice because he didn’t like the changes that had tak­en place under President Donald Trump. 

“He can’t hold a job,” Alvarado said. “He’s gone from job to job.” 

A for­mer Navy JAG offi­cer, Dembo worked briefly for Gov. Andy Beshear as leg­isla­tive direc­tor between jobs at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Lexington. 

Alvarado said Dembo had some­thing like a 43 per­cent suc­cess rate in get­ting con­vic­tions as an assis­tant U.S. dis­trict attor­ney, and the aver­age for most fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors is in the 90s. 

Health and Social Security 

The most impor­tant thing for vot­ers to focus on, he said, is Dembo’s pol­i­cy positions. 

“He tries to act like he’s a very mod­er­ate guy, but don’t be fooled by that,” he said. “This guy is for social­ized med­i­cine. He’s for Medicare for All.” 

“Government is the prob­lem when it comes to our health care sys­tem. He wants to give it more pow­er and con­trol,” said Alvarado, a Winchester physi­cian who was a Kentucky state sen­a­tor and served as Tennessee’s state health com­mis­sion­er until he decid­ed to run for the open seat in Congress. 

A search by WinCity Voices of Dembo’s web­site and news arti­cles about his cam­paign found no evi­dence that the can­di­date sup­ports Medicare for All or a sin­gle-pay­er nation­al insur­ance sys­tem. He has said he would favor a “pub­lic option,” which would let peo­ple younger than 65 elect to buy in to Medicare or some oth­er pub­lic pro­gram by pay­ing premiums. 

Dembo wants to restore $1 tril­lion in Medicaid cuts that were part of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill and restore and expand the Affordable Care Act tax cred­its that were allowed to expire dur­ing the cur­rent pres­i­den­tial administration. 

Alvarado said he has got­ten the endorse­ment of sev­er­al med­ical and hos­pi­tal groups. 

“They’re going to tell you that they want me because I have an under­stand­ing of how to fix our health care sys­tem,” he said, but did not elaborate. 

Asked what he thinks Congress should do to address the issue of Social Security reserves run­ning out by 2032, Alvarado said that, for retirees and those near­ing retire­ment, “it’s a promise we made to them, and it needs to be protected.” 

But for young peo­ple, “you’ve got to find a way to invest those funds.” He sug­gest­ed one way would be Trump Accounts, the new, cus­to­di­al indi­vid­ual retire­ment accounts that include $1,000 of gov­ern­ment seed mon­ey and can be rolled over into oth­er invest­ments when a child turns 18. 

“The American dream is about hav­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to thrive. It is not a guar­an­tee of suc­cess,” Alvarado remarked. 

Amendment 1 

State Sen. Greg Elkins, R‑Winchester, explained the state con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment that is on the bal­lot and that he helped spon­sor. It would pre­vent the gov­er­nor from par­don­ing crim­i­nals or com­mut­ing sen­tences from 60 days before a gen­er­al elec­tion up to and includ­ing the day of inauguration. 

He also said he would be vot­ing for Fayette Circuit Judge Lucy VanMeter, the wife of for­mer Chief Justice Larry VanMeter, for the Kentucky Court of Appeals, rather than the incum­bent, Judge Will Moynahan, who was appoint­ed by Gov. Andy Beshear. 

“Make no mis­take about who he is,” he said. “Governor Beshear has endorsed him.” 

Moynahan, the grand­son of the late U.S. District Judge Bernard Moynahan of Nicholasville, is a for­mer assis­tant U.S. dis­trict attor­ney, Navy offi­cer, and fight­er pilot instructor. 

Republican leg­isla­tive lead­ers have endorsed VanMeter. 

Elkins, who is unop­posed for re-elec­tion, encour­aged vot­ers to get out and sup­port all the Republican can­di­dates, includ­ing U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, R‑Ky., who is run­ning for the United States Senate seat being vacat­ed by for­mer Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Alvarado, who hopes to suc­ceed Barr in the House. 

Polls show tight races for con­trol of the United States Senate and House of Representatives. 

Elkins also asked that vot­ers send Konstantopoulos to join him in the General Assembly, which is expect­ed to remain in Republican control. 

“If you send a Democrat to Frankfort,” where Republicans have a super­ma­jor­i­ty in both the House and Senate, he said, “they don’t get a seat at the table. They don’t get to bring mon­ey back to the district.” 

“We’re see­ing evi­dence, good evi­dence, that Democrats are very ener­gized,” Elkins said. “In vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, they actu­al­ly out­paced Republicans for the first time, maybe since the Clinton era,” both in Clark County and Kentucky, he said. 

Get out and vote ear­ly, Elkins encour­aged his listeners. 

Oct. 20 is the last day to request a mail-in absen­tee bal­lot. Excused in-per­son absen­tee vot­ing is Oct. 21–23 and 26–28. Early vot­ing, for which no absen­tee excuse is need­ed, is Oct. 30–31. The polls are open on Election Day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

The Clark County Republican Women’s Club will have its biggest fundrais­er of the year, a soup sup­per fundrais­er, Oct. 15 from 6–8 p.m. in the Cardinal Community Center gym, 30 Beckner St. Individual tick­ets are $25. 

The speak­ers for that event will be Congressman James Comer, Republican can­di­date for gov­er­nor in 2027, and Alvarado.