Candidates head to Fancy Farm, dueling trans surgery ads & another KY gov poll | 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 100 days until the November 7 general election in which Kentuckians will decide the commonwealth’s next governor: incumbent Democrat Andy Beshear or Republican challenger Daniel Cameron.

Whether you’re Team Mutton or Team Pork when it comes to barbecue or Team Beshear or Team Cameron when it comes to politics, this much its true: It’s Fancy Farm week in the Bluegrass.

The St. Jerome Fancy Farm Picnic, famous for its barbecue and political speeches, is returning to west Kentucky for its 143rd year.

This year’s line-up is jam-packed, as all the candidates running for statewide office have confirmed their attendance.

That’s right, folks. For the first time this general election season, we’ll see both Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Republican nominee Attorney General Daniel Cameron on the same stage together. This particular stage will be under an outdoor pavilion on what is sure to be a sweltering summer day with hundreds of people yelling at them, but hey, that’s half the fun of Fancy Farm.

Beshear will be joined by his running mate, Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman, and the full slate of Democratic nominees: attorney general candidate Rep. Pamela Stevenson, secretary of state candidate Buddy Wheatley, auditor candidate Kim Reeder, commissioner of agriculture nominee Sierra Enlow and treasurer candidate Michael Bowman.

Cameron will be flanked by State Sen. Robby Mills, his running mate, and the rest of the GOP ticket: attorney general nominee Russell Coleman, Secretary of State Michael Adams, auditor candidate Treasurer Allison Ball, commissioner of agriculture nominee Jonathan Shell and treasurer candidate Mark Metcalf.

(Here are a few links to last year’s coverage if you’re curious as to what that was like: an overview of the speeches, the best zingers and quips, the prevalence of anti-trans rhetoric in the speeches, and Democrats chanting ‘Breonna Taylor’ over Cameron’s speech.)

Last week, Beshear skipped the Kentucky Farm Bureau Measure the Candidates Forum, which led to Cameron calling the governor chicken on social media.

We don’t yet have a public debate schedule for this fall, so how many chances we’ll get to see Cameron and Beshear directly face off before Election Day is currently a big question mark.

But fret not, as we’ll have many more opportunities for old-fashioned politicking before Nov. 7, including the Farm Bureau’s 59th Annual Kentucky Country Ham Breakfast at the State Fair in Louisville. (A lingering question: with Kelly Craft’s gubernatorial campaign behind her — but a promise to ‘stay tuned’ — will she still drop millions of dollars on the prize-winning ham for the third consecutive year?)

Ads on commutations, surgery for minors hit the airwaves

Kentuckians hoping to get even the slightest bit of respite from political commercials are straight outta luck this year.

As we reported over the weekend, a new Republican Governors Association-backed ad released last week was pulled from YouTube for violating the site’s terms on “hate speech.” But by Monday morning, the ad was back online.

The commercial is the latest in a string of GOP attacks on the governor for vetoing Senate Bill 150, an omnibus anti-trans bill that, among other things, bans gender-affirming surgeries for minors. (We did a fact-check on similar claims here.)

The Beshear campaign pushed back hard against this line of attack, unveiling a new ad of its own last Monday. In the 30-second spot, Beshear speaks directly to the camera as he refutes those claims.

“I’ve never supported gender reassignment surgery for kids – and those procedures don’t happen here in Kentucky,” he says.

Eric Hyers, Beshear’s campaign manager, said in a statement that Cameron and his allies “are pushing a blatantly false attack because they know they can’t win talking about Cameron’s record.”

On a completely different subject, two more anti-Beshear ads were unveiled by conservative groups this week, both focusing on the governor’s COVID-era commutations of incarcerated people.

The first ad, released on Monday, comes from the Club for Growth’s PAC and will be aired by Louisville and Lexington stations thanks to a $2.9 million TV buy. It focuses on three men who received commutations and have been subsequently re-arrested; one man was convicted of sexually abusing a child, another strangled someone and the third is facing murder charges, but has not yet gone to trial.

Beshear was hammered on the subject again Tuesday morning when Bluegrass Freedom Action — a PAC supporting Cameron — put out its own ad, also in the Louisville and Lexington markets. It says Beshear “punished churchgoers” by prohibiting in-person religious services during the early stages of covid, while he “protected convicts” by giving them early release as the virus swept through corrections facilities.

“Daniel Cameron’s allies are spending millions of dollars on desperate attacks on Andy Beshear for following the Trump administration’s lead on COVID-era releasing of non-violent offenders near the end of their sentences,” the Beshear campaign said in a statement. “Now, it’s clear that even their cherry-picked examples don’t hold up to scrutiny. The truth is that Andy Beshear made hard decisions to keep Kentuckians safe, while Daniel Cameron, as Kentucky’s top law enforcement official, passes the buck and refuses to take any responsibility for crime. That’s not leadership.”

Morning Consult poll shows Beshear popularity remains high

It’s no surprise that groups opposing Beshear are firing on all cylinders, as a new Morning Consult poll shows that Beshear remains one of the most popular governors in America.

Beshear is in a three-way tie for the third-highest approval rating among all governors, with 64% of voters having a favorable view of his leadership and 32% disapproval.

Additionally, Morning Consult found that with about half of Republicans approving of Beshear, he’s also the most popular Democratic governor among the other party’s voters.

“Beshear is entering the heat of the campaign with strong popularity despite voters’ deep dislike of Biden in his state,” Morning Consult writes. “Kentucky voters are 37 points more likely to disapprove than approve of Biden’s job performance (30% to 67%). But to Beshear’s credit, even those who dislike the president more often than not give the governor positive marks.”