As Kentucky’s 6th District House race primary approaches, will Trump effect be in play?
Election Day at the Scott County Public Library precinct in Georgetown, Kentucky, on Nov. 5, 2024. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Arden Barnes)
Kentuckians in the 6th Congressional District will soon choose the candidates they want to face off in the general election this November and primary candidates are making their final pitches ahead of the May 19 primary.
A few boosts to the Republican base in the form of endorsements from President Donald Trump could motivate voters on both sides of the political aisle, experts say.
The president endorsed Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, who currently holds the seat but is leaving it to run for Sen. Mitch McConnell’s seat. Trump also endorsed former state Sen. Ralph Alvarado, a Republican candidate for the 6th District.
The 6th District, which includes Lexington, Stanton, Richmond and Mount Sterling, is “weird,” said Tres Watson, a former spokesperson for the Republican Party of Kentucky.
“For years, I have called it a mirage for national Democrats, because it looks like the sort of district they’re flipping across the country,” he explained, because it includes the University of Kentucky and the city of Lexington as well as rural areas.
“There’s just enough rural in the district that if you go too far to the center for Democrats, you lose money and activity in Lexington. If you go too far to the left, you lose votes in the rural areas,” he said. “It’s a very tough district for a Democrat to win, just because there’s just enough rural in there, you can’t go kind of all full bore on Lexington. And so I think that that gives a buffer.”
For Dems, it’s ‘about personality’
The Democratic candidates vying to flip a U.S. House seat in a purple district are former state Rep. Cherlynn Stevenson, former federal prosecutor Zach Dembo, former Lexington councilman David Kloiber, businesswoman Erin Petrey, Harvey Carroll Jr., Jimmy Ausbrooks and Corey Edwards.
Based on their debate performance, the candidates are generally aligned on major issues: In a recent debate on Kentucky Educational Television, Kloiber, Petrey and Stevenson said they supported Medicare for all. Dembo said he did not fully agree with it, adding that he had concerns about Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. overseeing “a government-sponsored healthcare plan.”
Central Kentucky U.S. House candidates show few differences in GOP, Democratic KET debates
They also agreed ICE is not working, but differed in how to handle it. Trump has vowed to remove people without permanent legal status throughout his 2024 campaign, but some Americans have criticized the aggressive use of federal ICE agents in recent months. In January, agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, sparking criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, including Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul.
Stevenson said ICE needs to be “reined in,” Kloiber said he would like to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, and Petrey called for ICE to be abolished.
Jonathan Miller, a former Democratic state treasurer, said the two frontrunners on the blue side appear to be Stevenson and Dembo.
That’s based on the money they’ve raised and their grassroots support, Miller explained, adding the candidates are closely aligned on big issues like healthcare.
“It really is more about personality. (Stevenson) is talking about her career in service and winning tough elections,” Miller said, “and Dembo is talking about his experience at the Department of Justice and quitting when Trump tried to politicize it.”
With Trump’s support, Republicans ‘hard to beat’
In addition to Trump-backed Alvarado, the Republican candidates are State Rep. Ryan Dotson, retired pharmaceutical executive Greg Plucinski, Adam Perez Arquette and Steve Shannon.
In a recent KET debate, Dotson and Plucinski (Alvarado was not present because of scheduling issues) agreed on issues including election integrity, term limits for members of Congress and both stopped short of calling U.S. military action in Iran a “war.”
Both repeated debunked theories of voter fraud, claiming former President Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election fairly.
Dotson leaned on his legislative record backing legislation in the General Assembly to prevent transgender women and girls from competing on their schools’ sports teams and would back a similar ban at the national level. Plucinski leaned on his business background and calls himself a non-traditional candidate, as this is his first run for office.
Alvarado, on his campaign website, promises to help “secure the southern border, stop the flow of fentanyl, restore energy independence and grow the economy by unleashing American workers and cutting taxes.”
The Trump endorsement gave Alvarado a needed name-recognition boost, Watson said.
“You reach kind of a point of ad saturation where people start to tune them out, because there’s just been so much,” Watson explained.
Even though Alvarado has been on television, his name ID may have been drowned out by the noise of the U.S. Senate race.
“But I think the Trump endorsement … certainly, especially within the more rural parts of the district … it’s going to be hard to beat,” Watson said. Still, the Trump endorsement is “immaterial if you don’t make it through the primary.”
In 2018, when Barr was running for reelection in the Sixth District, Trump came to Richmond and stumped for him, attracting a huge crowd on the Eastern Kentucky University campus.
Trump is unlikely to come to Kentucky before the primary, Watson said, but he could take a “victory lap” in a state where his approval has remained high despite a national decrease.
“It wouldn’t shock me if he showed up somewhere in central Kentucky to promote Barr and Alvarado, just because it is still an environment where he’s gonna get a very positive response,” Watson said. “I think he feels pretty confident. I don’t think he would’ve made the endorsement if he didn’t feel confident these two candidates were gonna win.”
Should he come back to the district to support the Republican candidate after the primary, Miller said it would likely be more helpful for Republicans.
“It certainly would help motivate the base of the Republican Party to get out,” he said. “But, also, it would motivate the base of the Democrat party to get out.”
While a Democrat strategy in the primary has been to attack Trump, Miller said candidates should focus more on the issues.
“I would advise the Democratic candidate to talk more about what he or she stands for, as opposed to making it about Trump,” he said. “I think that voters are really concerned about issues like affordability right now, and to me, that would be the wise course of action.”
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