Cameron talks Trump, race; more Dem abortion ads & down-ballot races on TV | 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 less than three weeks 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.

If you’re sick of encountering political ads everywhere, all the time, there’s good news and bad news.

The good news: Election Day is little more than two weeks away. The end is in sight.

The bad news: there were more than $3 million in television and radio ads purchased for this week alone.

According to Medium Buying, the week of Oct. 17 to Oct. 23 saw nearly $3.4 million in ad buys in the Kentucky governor’s race. That includes $2.25 million from Democrats, and another $1.12 million from Republicans.

Gov. Andy Beshear alone placed more than $1 million in ad buys, and Defending Bluegrass Values, a political action committee from the Democratic Governors Association, bought another $1.21 million.

On the GOP side, the campaign of Attorney General Daniel Cameron has spent $146,000 this week, and the other $971,000 has come from three PACs backing his candidacy.

Trump, abortion & recovery featured in new KY gov ads

Now let’s take a look at those latest ads to hit the small screen and web.

Cameron’s latest ad touts his endorsement from former President Donald Trump. As we noted in Trail to ‘23 a week ago, there have been scant few mentions of Trump from Cameron during this general election season.

In “Endorsed,” a news anchor announces Trump’s endorsement of Cameron, which is then followed by a clip of Cameron speaking alongside Trump at a rally years earlier.

“I’m the only candidate endorsed by President Trump,” Cameron says to the camera. “And the only candidate who stood up to Joe Biden. I fought the Biden agenda in court to defend Kentucky. Andy Beshear? He never will.”

The new ad’s message is similar to one the Cameron campaign released last September during the GOP primary, called “Only One.”

In that ad, Cameron again touts the Trump endorsement and fighting President Joe Biden in court, but it also mentions “only one candidate stopped abortion in Kentucky.” Cameron has come under scrutiny in the last month for softening his stance on Kentucky’s abortion ban, saying he would sign a law adding exceptions for rape and incest.

Defending Bluegrass Values, a PAC from the Democratic Governors Association, released an ad hitting Cameron on his historic position of opposing exceptions, featuring a Kentucky couple whose baby was diagnosed at the 20-week ultrasound with anencephaly.

“The doctor told us that meant our baby would be born without a brain,” the woman, Heather, says. “We had to end the pregnancy. But if Daniel Cameron had gotten his way, it would have forced us to give birth to our child with no brain.”

Kentucky’s current abortion ban does not allow exceptions for fatal fetal abnormalities.

Other new ads this week:

• Kentucky Values, an affiliate of the Republican Governors Association, said Beshear is “making Biden proud.”

• The Beshear campaigned released a pair of ads focused on tornado and flooding recovery in West and Eastern Kentucky, respectively.

• A one-minute YouTube video from the American Principles Project PAC depicted a world in which Democrats, including Beshear, will send the FBI to remove transgender children from their homes if their family members question their gender identity.

Pro-Cameron group poll shows Beshear lead shrinking

A new poll from a pro-Cameron PAC was released early Friday showing Cameron down only 2 percentage points to Beshear in a tight 47-45 contest, with 8% of voters undecided. The poll, commissioned by Bluegrass Freedom Action PAC which has supported Cameron since early in the primary, also showed voters still like former Republican President Donald Trump (63%/25% favorable/unfavorable rating). The margin of error on the poll is +/- 3.2%.

The poll was conducted among 1,845 likely voters and carried out by co/efficient, a Republican-aligned pollster co-founded by a general consultant for the Cameron campaign. The pollster does not have an official rating from polling analyst fivethirtyeight.com, but it was on the less accurate end of the spectrum of polls analyzed in 2022 races. The website found that 15 co/efficient polls had an average bias of 5.8 points in favor of Republican candidates.

The poll found that the 8% of voters surveyed who were undecided were likely to have a negative reaction to the fact that Beshear has endorsed Democratic President Joe Biden in his bid for re-election. Messaging throughout the campaign, even in the primary, from Republicans has attempted to link Beshear to Biden.

The only polls sponsored by independent groups this general election cycle have showed Beshear with double-digit leads — one was conducted in late June and the other in early October. However, politicos of all political stripes have raised warnings about putting faith in polls of the state, particularly when it comes to accurately gauging support for Republican candidates.

... Then the Beshear campaign releases a poll

Hours after Bluegrass Freedom Action released the poll it commissioned, Beshear campaign manager Eric Hyers posted to social media a poll that the campaign commissioned showing Beshear’s lead holding at +8 percentage points, 52-44, with only 4% undecided.

The poll was conducted by Garin-Hart-Yang Research, a well-known Democratic-aligned pollster with a “B+” rating from fivethirtyeight.com. However, the group has a history of inflating Democratic performances in Kentucky. A few months prior to the 2020 U.S. Senate election, the firm polled Amy McGrath only four percentage points behind U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in a race McConnell ended up winning by nearly 20 points.

A poll conducted around the same time showed Trump with a 13-point lead over Biden in Kentucky; Trump ended up winning the Commonwealth by 26 percentage points. A 2019 poll from the firm in the lead up to Beshear’s tight 0.4 percentage point win had the governor 9 percentage points ahead of Bevin.

The recent poll showing Beshear with an 8-point lead over Cameron indicated that Beshear supporters are more strong in their support of their preferred candidate than Cameron supporters — 86% of those who said they were supporting Beshear told the pollster they were strong supporters compared to 66% of those who backed Cameron.

The memo for the poll is dated Oct. 20, though the poll was conducted Oct. 14-16 with 721 likely Kentucky voters. The margin of error is +/- 3.6%.

Down-ballot ads ramp up

Lest the gubernatorial race hog the airwaves, some of the down-ballot candidates running for office this year are booking their time on TV and releasing new ads.

On the Republican side, commissioner of agriculture candidate Jonathan Shell launched two ads Monday — “Frankfort Needs Fighters,” and “Stop Biden. Save Kentucky” — as a part of a “robust campaign to reach Kentucky voters.”

“As a farmer and a former policymaker, I have a lifetime of relationships and experience in farming,” Shell said in a news release about his ads. “I want to serve my fellow Kentuckians who are struggling with crushing inflation and an indifferent Washington establishment that looks down on our state.”

Shell is running against Democrat Sierra Enlow.

Russell Coleman, the GOP nominee for attorney general, also debuted two new 15-second spots — “Trust” and “Proven Prosecutor” — as a part of an “aggressive statewide expenditure.” Coleman released his first ad, “Lawman,” earlier in October. Coleman, former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, has raised more than $1 million to support his campaign for office.

Coleman’s Democratic opponent, Rep. Pamela Stevenson of Louisville, took to social media to introduce her first ad, which touts her 27 years in the Air Force.

“My first ad! We have polling that shows once voters hear about my time in the service, we win,” Stevenson’s campaign wrote on social media. “Please contribute TODAY, to help keep this ad up on TV.”

Cameron on KET

Cameron sat down with KET’s Renee Shaw earlier this month for a wide-ranging half-hour interview about his relationship with U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the issues in the governor’s contest and, most notably, race.

Cameron is the first Black attorney general in Kentucky history, the first Black official to be independently elected to statewide office in the commonwealth and, if he wins in November, would be the first elected Black Republican governor in the nation.

Despite his history-making nomination, Cameron has been, at times, reluctant to discuss race.

Shaw, who is also Black, asked Cameron if he’d ever benefited from the diversity initiatives he now rails against.

Cameron responded that he’d earned a 4.0 GPA in high school and did well for himself in undergrad and law school.

“One of the things that I think makes this conversation really difficult is that you look at me and and think, ‘Well, you know, Daniel, you’ve done a good job, but maybe it’s because of the color of your skin,’” Cameron said. “And I want to get to a place in this commonwealth and in this country that we’re not saying, ‘Well, maybe you did that because of the color of your skin.’ We’re saying that you did it because of merit.”

Cameron said it’s never once crossed his mind that he might lose a race — whether for attorney general or governor — because he’s Black.

Kentuckians are ready to elect someone who reflects their values, he said, “and I happen to be Black.”