Horse-industry money lifts Gorton's reelection while developers prop up Wu in last pre-primary report

May 10, 2026 · Source: The Lexington Times

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Mayor Linda Gorton raised more money in a single afternoon last week than she had in any month before April, the final pre-primary campaign-finance reports show, with eight checks from the Goodman family of Mt. Brilliant Farm and adjacent Rosenstein-family relatives totaling $15,200 in deposits dated May 4.

The same reports show Vice Mayor Dan Wu, who received $10,000 from five Goodman family members during his first run for council in 2022, getting nothing from the family this cycle. Wu, an at-large incumbent, will not face voters until November and could still draw the family's support before then; for the 15-day window, Wu's largest new contributions came instead from the city's home-building, real-estate and small-developer rolls.

Mayoral challenger Raquel Carter, who continues to lead her opponent in cycle-to-date receipts by more than two-to-one, added another 73 contributions for $12,516 across her broader donor base.

Mayor Linda Gorton at a Lexington podium in spring 2026, mid-statement, in a red, black and tan blouse with a silver and turquoise pendant — Mayor Linda Gorton at a Lexington event this spring. Her 15-day pre-primary report shows $44,205 in new receipts, more than she had raised in any prior month of the cycle. *(Photo: Paul Oliva / Lexington Times)*

Filed with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance and due by May 6, the 15-day pre-primary disclosures are the last public look at fundraising in Lexington's local races before voters go to the polls May 19. The reports, which cover money raised since the 30-day cut on April 19, added $95,365 across 343 new contributions to the city's primary dataset, pushing the cycle total to $710,669 across 2,390 individual contributions. Nineteen of the 21 candidates picked up at least one new entry.

Mayor's race: Carter still ahead, Gorton activated

Mayoral candidate Raquel Carter speaking at the LFUCG Planning Commission podium on December 12, 2024 — Mayoral challenger Raquel Carter speaking at the LFUCG Planning Commission, December 12, 2024 — identifying herself as “an owner and a real estate broker here in Lexington for over 20 years now” and citing the city's 22,000-unit housing shortfall, the framing she would later carry into her mayoral campaign. *(Screenshot: LFUCG Granicus, clip 6296)*

Carter, a Lexington real-estate broker who co-founded Guide Realty in 2008, has now reported $174,148 in cycle receipts across 548 individual contributions. Her campaign profile remains heavily small-dollar; her one new max-out in the latest filing came from Thomas Dean of DeanBuilds, a Lexington commercial-construction firm.

Gorton, who is seeking a third term, reported $44,205 in receipts in the new window — bringing her cycle total to $80,397 — nearly all of it from individual contributors and none of it from political action committees. Most of that bump landed in two clusters.

The first came on April 23 and 24, with maximum $2,200 contributions from Lisa Lourie, founder of the 800-acre Spy Coast Farm show-jumper operation next to the Kentucky Horse Park; Judy Miller of Spring Meadow Farm; and Terry Green of Sugar Land, Texas. Frank Penn of Pennbrook Farm — the 300-acre Mt. Horeb Pike Thoroughbred-and-tobacco operation that won the 2024 Thomas Poe Cooper Farm Leadership Award — gave $2,000 the same week.

The second, larger cluster came on May 4. Six Goodman family members — H. Greg, Harold, Hutton, Hannah, Rebecca, and Mary Jane Goodman Rosenstein — each gave the $2,200 maximum, for a combined $13,200. The same May 4 deposit included $1,000 from Robert Rosenstein of RD Properties and $1,000 from Ann Rosenstein Giles of AJ Marketing — both share a surname with Mary Jane Goodman Rosenstein, who married into the Lexington Rosenstein family in a ceremony at Mt. Brilliant Farm. The deposit also included $2,000 from attorney Jim Gardner of Sturgill Turner Barker & Moloney, and $1,000 from Coleman Callaway III of the Lexington home-builder Broadview Buildings. The single-day total to Gorton: $17,200.

Greg Goodman, who has owned Mt. Brilliant since 1996, is a co-founder of the land-use advocacy group Fayette Alliance and a recipient of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association's Robert N. Clay Conservation Award for his work preserving Bluegrass farmland. The farm operates roughly 1,200 acres on land that historically housed Man o' War and Domino. Greg's father Harold Goodman, the founder of HVAC manufacturer Goodman Global, was a noted Texas Thoroughbred breeder before his death in 2014.

Of the four other declared mayoral candidates, only Darnell Tagaloa reported new receipts ($135 across three small entries). Ramazani Asmani, who had no fundraising on the 30-day report, appeared in the cycle data for the first time with $556 in self-funding. Greg O'Neal, C.E. Huffman, and Skip Horine remain at zero.

At-large council: Wu's donor base shifts toward builders

Vice Mayor Dan Wu at a Lexington outdoor event in spring 2026, in sunglasses and a blue and white floral short-sleeve shirt — Vice Mayor Dan Wu at a Lexington event this spring. Wu's $7,450 in new receipts came from a Walker Properties max-out and a list of home-building, real-estate and small-developer names. *(Photo: Paul Oliva / Lexington Times)*

Wu, the incumbent vice mayor and the first Asian American elected to citywide office in Lexington's history, leads the at-large field with $68,148 in cycle receipts across 302 contributions. He added $7,450 in the latest window, with $6,200 of that from five donors:

Chad Walker of Walker Properties — $2,200 maximum, April 22
Lee Todd, the former University of Kentucky president — $1,000, April 25
John Atchison of Atchison Construction — $1,000, April 27
James Frazier of McBrayer PLLC — $500, April 23
Thomas Matthews of EC Matthews Co. — $500, April 24
Tyler Bromagen of Foundation Investments — $500, April 27

Walker's company owns much of the commercial property along National Avenue. He held a press conference last year asserting that Flock Safety license-plate cameras failed to capture the suspect's vehicle in the National Avenue mass shooting outside the El Cid bar.

Incumbent at-large councilmember James Brown added $9,975 across 24 contributions in the latest window, including $1,000 from boutique-hotel developer Nik Feldman of New Circle Companies, $1,000 from Frazier of McBrayer, $1,000 from Davis & Plomin Mechanical president John Plomin, $1,000 from Justice Real Estate broker Billy Justice, and $1,000 from Sherri Ball of the Bristol Group. Brown's cycle total stands at $48,720.

Three other at-large candidates filed: Stephanie Spires ($9,955 cycle, 43 entries), Herbert Lynn ($9,308 cycle, 190 small-dollar entries), and Christopher Shafer ($5,764 cycle, 9 entries, no new movement).

The open District 5 race: three coalitions, no daylight

The race for retiring councilmember Liz Sheehan's south-side seat remains the most evenly funded open council contest of the cycle. Three candidates are within $5,000 of one another:

Stephenie Hoelscher, a former Courier-Journal government reporter who runs the Lexington firm SSH Consulting: $28,552 cycle ($2,272 new, mostly from a $2,765 personal contribution and a $1,000 check from Elizabeth Whitehouse, chief public-policy officer at The Council of State Governments)
Nicholas Wolter, the home builder: $23,708 cycle ($7,835 new across 50 entries — the highest new-money count of any council candidate)
Michael McLaughlin, the technology-services executive: $22,018 cycle ($2,350 new)

Sheehan herself, who is not seeking reelection, reported $8,301 sitting in her account from earlier in the cycle and added nothing in the new window.

Inside Wolter's 50-entry haul

Half of Wolter's 50 new contributions — 25 of them — were dated April 23, with denominations clustering at $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, $200, $250 and $500. Many entries were filed at odd amounts ($106, $211, $527) consistent with online platforms passing through processing fees, suggesting a single fundraiser-day push rather than a steady drip of mailed checks.

The April 23 cluster pulled in $500 from Norm Biller of Biller Homes, the Lexington new-construction realty firm Biller has run with his wife Shannon since 1992; $500 from Thomas Gaines of KBC International, the Lexington equine-supply business and a former Breeders' Cup board member; and $527 from David McSwain of McSwain Consulting, a Stillwater, Oklahoma bank-credit advisory firm. Smaller checks the same day came from a service manager at Hinkle Contracting, a loan officer at Guardian Savings Bank, a workers'-compensation attorney at Morgan & Morgan's Lexington office, an interior designer, a tattoo artist, a Wing Stop manager, and a chef de cuisine in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Other notable Wolter entries across the window:

Bud Dupree, the Los Angeles Chargers linebacker and former University of Kentucky Wildcat — $500, May 4, listed at an Inglewood, California address
Doug Disponette of Disponette Contracting, the 40-year Lexington family general contractor — $250, April 26
Christy Helton, customer-relations manager at Ball Homes, one of Lexington's largest production builders — $100, April 26
Andrew Wilson of National Real Estate — $106, April 23
Chancellor Scott, a realtor at Raquel Carter's brokerage Guide Realty — $100, April 23 (Scott has also given to Carter's mayoral campaign earlier in the cycle, and is the only Guide Realty employee on a Wolter report this cycle)
Tyler Bromagen of Foundation Investments — $500, April 27 (Bromagen also gave $500 to Vice Mayor Wu the same day)
Jessica Wolter of Calendula Properties, listed as a property manager — $300, May 4

Wolter's report has more individual donors than any other council filing this window, and the donor list itself runs broader than the “construction-trades” label that has followed his campaign — mixing residential builders and realtors with bar and restaurant owners, a tattoo studio, a banking consultant out of Oklahoma, an equine-supply executive, and a sitting NFL player. The pattern suggests Wolter's coalition reaches further into the day-to-day Lexington economy than either of his District 5 opponents have so far reported.

District races: November money already taking shape

The district seats, which mostly skip the May primary and go straight to November, already show clear fundraising disparities.

District 3: Griffin VanMeter, co-founder of the merchandising company Kentucky for Kentucky and a co-leader of the 2024 Yes for Parks ballot initiative, has reported $119,630 across 345 contributions — the largest district-level haul of the cycle. He added $1,653 in the new window. His November opponent, former county judge-executive Jon Larson, has reported zero.

District 11: Richard Moloney, who is seeking a return to the council seat he held in two earlier stints totaling more than 20 years, reported $25,225 cycle and added $3,000 in the new window. The new money included a $2,000 contribution from Jerry Lundergan, the former Kentucky Democratic Party chair and Lundy's Catering owner who was pardoned by President Biden on January 20, 2025, for a 2019 federal campaign-finance conviction. Moloney's November opponent, Cassandra Vogl, has reported $1,350 with no new entries.

District 6: Both candidates are newcomers in a race where the incumbent is not running. Tina Bryson reported $15,971 cycle ($600 new); Tyler Pyles reported $4,067 cycle ($180 new).

District 4: Incumbent Emma Curtis reported $2,957 cycle across 50 individual contributions averaging about $60. Her opponent, Brenda Monarrez, has reported a single $1,000 contribution.

District 10: Christopher Woodall reported $18,262 cycle, including a $2,200 maximum from Greg Goodman in December, with no new entries this window. The seat is uncontested.

District 9: Incumbent Whitney Baxter reported $6,933 across two entries. Her challenger, Matt Miniard, has reported no fundraising for the cycle.

District 12: Incumbent Hilary Boone reported a single $14,637 contribution to her own campaign. Uncontested.

District 1: Incumbent Tyler Morton reported a single $6,837 entry. Uncontested.

District 2: Incumbent Shayla Lynch reported $5,685 cycle ($385 new). Uncontested.

Other candidates reporting zero across the entire cycle include Larson and District 8 candidates Tray Hughes and incumbent Amy Beasley.

What's next

The 15-day report is the final scheduled disclosure before the May 19 primary. Whatever fundraising happens in the closing nine days will not be public until the post-primary report, due roughly 30 days after the election. November-only candidates will continue filing quarterly through the fall.

Underlying records are browsable on the city's donors dashboard. Candidate filings are publicly searchable on the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance.

References and sources

Filings and primary data

Mayoral race — donor backgrounds

At-large — Wu donor backgrounds

District 11 / Moloney — Lundergan

District 3 / VanMeter — Larson

Jon Larson, former Fayette County Judge-Executive (Ballotpedia)

District 5 candidates and donors

Other meeting and council references

This article was drafted with AI assistance (claude-opus-4-7) and finalized for publication by The Lexington Times. Reporting is grounded in Kentucky Registry of Election Finance 15-day pre-primary filings (due May 6, 2026), accessed via the public LFUCG donors dataset at app.lexingtonky.news. Donor backgrounders are sourced from the public-record links cited inline. Photographs are screenshots from publicly available LFUCG Granicus broadcasts (clip 6691). How we make these.