Cameron & Coleman trade education jabs, the Trump-Beshear voter and more | Trail to ’23

This is part of an occasional Herald-Leader series, Trail to ‘23, to catch readers up on all the latest from this year’s Kentucky elections, most notably the governor’s race. There are fewer than 40 days until the Nov. 7 general election in which Kentuckians will decide the commonwealth’s next governor: incumbent Democrat Andy Beshear or Republican challenger Daniel Cameron. Past installments can be read online.

A new analysis of campaign advertising spending has found the Kentucky governor’s contest to be the second-most expensive race in the nation, behind only the 2024 presidential election.

AdImpact, an organization that tracks political ads and spending, reported last week that so far, 2023 has seen $890 million in political ad spending and future reservations. The presidential race accounted for $208 million of that, followed by the Kentucky governor’s race with $67 million in spending.

The governor’s race between Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Republican challenger Attorney General Daniel Cameron has proven to be a boon for area broadcast markets. Lexington has seen the fifth-most spending in the nation with $23.7 million, and Louisville came in seventh with $21.3 million.

Cameron, Coleman sound off on education

Education has been the topic at hand at a pair of speaking engagements in Lexington for both candidates.

Cameron spoke at a meeting of the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents about the prudence of his “catch-up” plan to recover from learning loss that took place as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.

The plan includes a significant starting salary raise for new teachers as well as a summer and after-school program to “ensure our kids will get more reading and math instruction from high-quality educators,” Cameron said.

One point of emphasis for Cameron: He claimed he could get his own plan through the Republican-dominated legislature while casting Beshear’s proposal to raise school employee pay 11% across the board as a pipe dream.

Cameron worked with the legislature to develop his plan while he cited GOP House Education Chair James Tipton’s, R-Taylorsville, claim that neither Beshear nor any Democratic legislator has reached out about the governor’s plan.

“It is a verifiable fact that this governor has no relationship with the legislature and has no ability to get his plan passed. His plan is an epitome of a Hail Mary in an election year. With no plan and no strategy, a vote for the present administration is a vote for a decade of decline for our children, unfulfilled promises for our teachers and empty rhetoric for our families,” Cameron said.

Democratic Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman gave an education-centric speech of her own last week, this one a campaign event at the Lexington Public Library’s main branch.

Beshear won this county by 0.3 points in 2019. How are voters there feeling now?

Like Cameron, Coleman went on the offensive against her opponent. She brought cutouts blasting Cameron for not proposing raises for experienced teachers, supporting tax credit-funded private school vouchers and the ticket’s ties to controversial pension reform.

Her opponent for the lieutenant governor spot, Sen. Robby Mills, R-Henderson, was a strong advocate for a pension reform bill pushed by former Republican governor Matt Bevin. That bill — dubbed the “sewer bill” by opponents — drew intense backlash from teachers. Coleman said that the fact that Cameron picked Mills proves Cameron is no friend of public educators.

“When you pick someone who is an architect of the sewer bill, someone who is anti-public education, anti-worker, you’re sending a message about exactly how you’re going to operate in not only your campaign but also as an administration. We cannot afford four more years of Matt Bevin’s policies under Daniel Cameron and Robby Mills,” Coleman said.

When asked why she believed the ambitious teacher raise could get through the legislature, which has been hesitant to follow any fiscal policy proposed by Beshear, Coleman pointed out that big raises have recently been given to state police troopers and social workers. It’s time to give one to the teachers, she said.

“We can afford it. When our budget proposal goes to the legislature, it’s already gonna have this 11% raise in it. The math is done, the work is done — why don’t you just leave it in there? And if they choose not to, then they need to be held accountable by the voters,” Coleman said.

Cameron claims “consistency” on abortion

Speaking on WVLK’s Larry Glover Live last Friday, Cameron was again pressed about his position on abortion, namely exceptions for rape and incest.

Democrats and the Beshear campaign have made hay of Cameron’s publicly evolving position on abortion in recent weeks, highlighting that the attorney general has a long track record defending Kentucky’s abortion law as-is, which doesn’t have exceptions for rape and incest.

Cameron garnered attention two weeks ago when he said on a different radio program that he would sign a bill adding such exceptions. Then, last week, Cameron said at a campaign stop he’d sign that bill “if our courts made that change.”

“I guess you made news, I guess a week or so ago, when you came out and said that you would sign legislation that would provide exceptions for rape and incest to Kentucky’s abortion law. Is that a newfound feeling? Or is that something you’ve always held?” Glover asked Cameron.

“No, I’ve maintained consistency on this. Look, I’m the pro-life candidate in this race, and what I’ve said is I support the Human Life Protection Act,” Cameron said of Kentucky’s trigger ban.

“But if the law in the intervening period was to change, meaning the court or somebody made it a judgment that we had to add exceptions, and our legislature put those in, of course I would sign it.”

“Do you believe there should be access to abortion?” Glover asked as a follow-up.

“Well, look ... as I’ve said before, I support the Human Life Protection Act,” Cameron replied in part.

Later in the interview, Glover circled back to the exceptions, asking if he’d lobby the legislature to pass such a measure.

“Look, I support the Human Life Protection Act, and I’ve said that repeatedly,” Cameron said, before falsely claiming Beshear wants “no limits” on abortion. (Beshear has previously told the Herald-Leader he opposes late-term abortion and has “been clear and consistent since when I ran for attorney general that I believe in reasonable restrictions.”)

During the same appearance, Glover asked Cameron if Kentucky has the tourism revenue to eliminate the income tax, as Cameron has promised to do.

“Well, one of the things that we have to do, is you have to get a governor out of office that releases criminals from jail,” Cameron said of Beshear’s COVID-19 commutations.

“I mean, Andy Beshear, to the extent, you know, when you’re a family and you’re thinking about traveling somewhere or going somewhere for vacation, and you Google ‘the governor of Kentucky,’ and you look down the list of Google hits, and you see that he let out 2,000 criminals and a third of those have recommitted felony offenses, that gives you a little apprehension.”

Kentucky was among several states and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to release incarcerated people during the early stages of the pandemic.

Cameron, GOP ties Biden to Beshear, while Beshear ties himself to... Trump?

As the last couple of weeks of the Kentucky governor’s race news cycle have been dominated by discussion of abortion and birth control, the Cameron campaign and its GOP allies have made at least a half-dozen attempts via news releases, social media and campaign mailers to tie Beshear to President Joe Biden.

The president lost Kentucky in 2020 by 26 percentage points and remains deeply unpopular in the Bluegrass State.

The Biden Victory Fund — a joint fundraising committee for Biden, the Democratic National Committee and state-level Democratic parties — has given $250,000 to the Kentucky Democratic Party, which raised nearly $2.8 million from June through August, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

The Republican Party of Kentucky said Biden has “bankrolled” Beshear’s campaign, while Cameron said there’s “not a dime’s worth of difference” between the two.

Also among those efforts is a new ad from the Republican Governor’s Association-affiliated political action committee, Kentucky Values.

“Career politicians like Beshear and Biden lie for a livin’,” the voiceover in the commercial says, “but Kentucky knows the truth.”

Beshear, meanwhile, released an ad featuring a Donald Trump voter who says he’s going to vote for the incumbent Democrat in this election.

“I voted for Trump because I felt that he was putting the American people first. I’m going to support Andy because I do feel he’s putting Kentucky first,” Alan Greenwell says in the video.

In response, Cameron issued a statement saying Beshear is “so afraid of losing to me that he’s now comparing himself to Trump.”

“Trump has his candidate in this race,” Cameron said of the four-time indicted former president who endorsed his candidacy last year. “It’s not Andy, it’s me.”

This wouldn’t be the first time Beshear has tried to sell his bipartisan appeal — literally. His campaign store sells a “Republicans for Andy” T-shirt, and Greenwell is the second GOP voter to appear in a Beshear commercial.

Beshear has previously highlighted the fact that he’s sent Kentucky National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexico border under both Biden and Trump administrations.

“Border security is national security,” Beshear said in May. “And when you are asked by a president, you say yes.”

Fairness Campaign PAC endorses Dems — except one

C-FAIR, the PAC of the LGBTQ rights group the Fairness Campaign, rolled out its endorsements last week, which included the entire slate of Democratic candidates for constitutional office.

That much is not surprising.

Beshear become the first sitting governor in 2020 to attend the Fairness Campaign’s annual rally at the Capitol, and when he returned to the rally earlier this year, Executive Director Chris Hartman introduced him as the “most pro-equality governor in Kentucky history.”

And Democratic nominee for attorney general, Rep. Pamela Stevenson of Louisville, emerged from the 2023 General Assembly as one of the most vocal opponents of Senate Bill 150, an omnibus anti-trans bill.

But there was one noticeable absence among the endorsements, which also included local races in Fayette and Jefferson counties.

The C-Fair board “decided to make no endorsement” in the House District 93 special election between Democrat Adrielle Camuel and Republican Kyle Whalen to fill the seat previously held by the late Rep. Lamin Swann, who died in May.

Camuel has been criticized by a number of her fellow Democrats, including Kentucky’s first openly transgender elected official Rebecca Blankenship, for remarks made after being asked about SB 150 and cultural issues.

“This is actually one of the reasons why I jumped in because I’m really tired of, you know, the extremes on both sides, of polarizing issues when we really need to get to the meat of issues,” Camuel said.

Blankenship was joined by other trans leaders in Kentucky, including Emma Curtis, who had sought the nomination for Swann’s seat, in denouncing Camuel’s “transphobic words and actions.”

“She has brought shame and dishonor to the Party that we have trusted to fight for our rights,” the statement said in part.

Camuel issued a statement a few days later affirming her support for the LGBTQ community, and pledged to “introduce or cosponsor legislation to repeal SB 150 on Day One” if elected.

“I would also like to apologize for not being clear enough recently in my support for a community that has already experienced so much pain,” Camuel wrote.