A historic nominee, Cameron picks and chooses when to discuss race in bid for KY governor

When Daniel Cameron clinched the Republican nomination for Kentucky governor in May, he also secured a place in history.

Cameron, 37, became the first Black person to win a major party nomination for Kentucky governor in the commonwealth’s history. And when he was elected as attorney general in 2019, he became the first Black person to be independently elected to statewide office and the second-ever Black statewide officeholder in Kentucky after former Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton, who won on the Republican ticket with Matt Bevin in 2015.

Should he win come November, Cameron would become only the fourth elected Black governor in American history — and the first-ever Black Republican to hold such an office.

“This campaign has tried to embody the promise of America, that if you work hard and if you stand on principle, anything is possible,” he said in his primary night victory speech. “Tonight we prove that here in Kentucky, the American Dream is alive and well, because here in Kentucky, you aren’t judged by the color of your skin, but the content of your character.”

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Those achievements contrast sharply with the ire resulting from conservative stances that have often stirred full-throated backlash. Many of the rebukes are especially strong when it comes to his handling of the investigation into the 2020 fatal Louisville Metro Police shooting of Breonna Taylor, including “sell-out negro,” “Uncle Daniel” and a “Black face of white supremacy.”

While Cameron has pushed back against racist remarks made specifically about him, he has also at times, avoided talking about race and racism.

When asked about withdrawing from an event hosted by Eric Deters, a Northern Kentucky right-wing figure with a history of saying racist things — including using the N-word, decrying the prevalence of interracial couples in media and saying “Blacks want to control everything” — Cameron, repeatedly, would not denounce the comments and instead pivoted to other talking points.

Additionally, Cameron made it the first pillar of his education framework to keep Critical Race Theory out of public schools, and has praised the U.S. Supreme Court opinion overturning race-based affirmative action at colleges as being “exactly right.” In July, he joined a coalition of 13 attorneys general to “fight against woke ideology by warning some of the nation’s largest, most profitable companies against continuing race-based hiring practices.”

Alvin B. Tillery, Jr., a professor and the director of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy at Northwestern University, said positions like those are “a fast-track to wealth and privilege and power in Republican politics” for Cameron and other Black conservatives.

“One path to become a rich and powerful, typically Black man, is to adopt positions which 85-to-90% of the Black community disagrees with,” Tillery said. ”Let’s just make no bones about it: there are people who elevate their careers by attaching themselves to these positions to do harm to others of their race for gain.”

Cameron said the country has “made incredible progress when it comes to race relations in the United States.” American politics, he said, “should be driven by what’s in your heart and in your brain; not what you look like.”

“I grew up in a small town in Kentucky with two hard-working, Christian parents who ran a small business. I’ve often said that I was under the impression that everyone voted Republican when I was growing up,” he said in a written response to Herald-Leader questions. “My parents voted for Republicans as long as I can remember. I registered as a Republican when I turned 18.”

The Breonna Taylor case

From the beginning, Cameron’s approach to discussing his office’s role in the Taylor case recognized the “tragedy” of the 26-year-old’s death — one of the defining events of the 2020 racial justice movement — while also making clear the law and facts took precedent above all. In the three years since, he continues to describe his actions as having been done “without fear or favor.”

Shortly after announcing no officers were indicted for Taylor’s death, Cameron said criminal law “is not meant to respond to every sorrow and grief, and that is true here.” He understood, “as a Black man,” the pain of Taylor’s death, he said.

“My heart breaks for the loss of Ms. Taylor, and I’ve said that repeatedly. My mother, if something was to happen to me,” he said, taking a long pause before continuing, “would find it very hard. And I’ve seen that pain on (Taylor’s mother, Tamika) Ms. Palmer’s face. I’ve seen that pain in the community.”

But, he added, the Office of the Attorney General’s responsibility was to “make sure that we uncovered every fact, that we utilized every resource that we could bring to bear, to uncover the facts and the truth, and that’s ultimately what we presented to the grand jury.”

Whether the investigation and prosecution led by Cameron’s office lived up to that commitment remains subject of debate, especially in light of the federal Department of Justice charging four officers in August 2022 for their roles in the raid at Taylor’s home.

“Because of who he was aligned with, I never expected Daniel Cameron to do the right thing,” said Louisville writer and activist Hannah Drake. Cameron being a Black man denying Taylor justice adds a layer of hurt to the situation, Drake said, but only to a degree because “I expect Daniel to act like Daniel.”

Drake first wrote about Cameron on her blog in a post called ‘When Rooting For Everybody Black Goes Wrong’ in 2019, just days before he’d be elected as Kentucky’s first Republican attorney general in decades, and months before Taylor was killed.

“While you may want to support Daniel Cameron because he is a young Black man, where he has placed his stake in the ground is diametrically opposed to what is good for the people of Kentucky. How can I support someone who wholeheartedly stands with two people that mean me harm?” Drake, who is Black, wrote of Cameron’s ties to U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and former President Donald Trump. “How can I support someone that is upheld by a man that says there are good people on both sides when it comes to one side protesting injustice and one side whose mission is to kill Black people?”

Looking back at that post and his handling of the Taylor case, Drake said its clear what Cameron would be like as governor.

“He has shown you who he is,” Drake said. “Believe him.”

Black women and ‘linked fate’ theory

While Taylor’s March 2020 death at the hands of police in her own apartment was a galvanizing force for the Black Lives Matter movement, it only became such after video of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis went viral and sparked national outrage; Taylor died two months before Floyd.

Taylor’s death hit especially close to home for Black women in Louisville — and far beyond. In Taylor, they saw themselves.

Some of Taylor’s biggest proponents — and Cameron’s most ardent critics — were high-profile Black women.

Beyoncé wrote an open letter to Cameron, urging him to charge the officers for Taylor’s death. Oprah Winfrey dedicated an issue to Taylor, and paid for 26 billboards around Louisville to commemorate her 26 years on Earth.

After the investigation was over, Rihanna called out Cameron more than once, including in response to a Black History Month post. “I’m just gon’ let this sink in to your hollow skull @danieljaycameron,” she wrote on Instagram, tagging him, along with the photo of a protest sign that read, “A cop shot a Black woman and was only charged for the shots missed.” It got more than 1.8 million likes.

One of the most high-profile instances of Black women using their star power against Cameron came on Oct. 3, 2020, when rapper Megan Thee Stallion performed on Saturday Night Live. While performing her hit song “Savage,” Megan Thee Stallion played audio of Until Freedom activist Tamika Mallory saying, “Daniel Cameron is no different than the sell-out negroes that sold our people into slavery.”

In a follow-up piece for The New York Times, the rapper called it “good trouble” like that promoted by late Congressman John Lewis.

Nadia Brown, a professor of government and chair of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University, said Black Americans have become more diversified since the civil rights era, “but because of their skin tone and the lived histories of race, they are more tied to one another” and often vote accordingly.

It’s called the “linked fate” theory, Brown said, but newer research has shown its limits. Black people tend to be more socially conservative and fiscally liberal, she said. As such, some may want to be Republicans, “but don’t want the racial backlash from being a Republican because of community ties.”

Brown’s own work has shown that linked fate is not extended to Black women.

“Black men don’t necessarily see themselves as connected to issues that impact Black women the way that Black women see themselves as affected by issues that impact Black men,” Brown said. “I think what we’re seeing in Kentucky are these divergences being played out in linked fate, a concept that really seemed to hold true between the civil rights movement, neoliberal politics, and moving into this now Trumpian era where it doesn’t hold up.”

‘There has been a double standard’

Cameron has discussed race in interviews, particularly when he’s been criticized.

After the Megan Thee Stallion performance, Cameron spoke on Fox News, saying those sorts of comments have been “hurled at” him for identifying “with a different political philosophy” since he was in college. Since then he’s gone on television to denounce columns and cartoons critical of him, telling Newsmax in May that it’s “not uncommon to see folks, particularly the far-left, attack any Black conservative that dares to think outside of the box.”

Cameron said “there has been a double standard” throughout his campaigns for office.

“I often get asked to denounce every racist comment or behavior from any supporter,” he said. “I can only control my own speech. I can’t control everyone else’s.”

Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat who is on the ballot against Cameron this November, called out Deters’ comments — unprompted — at a weekly news conference in July. Deters finished fourth in the Republican gubernatorial primary, and has indicated he will mount a primary campaign against Rep. Thomas Massie, R-KY.

“I fully condemn each of these statements this individual made, and I call on every other elected official to do so,” Beshear said. “The way we root out hate and end it is to make sure that we call it out when it’s there, no matter who is saying it.”

Cameron called the governor’s comments “audacious.”

“I do think it’s audacious for Gov. Beshear to call on me, a Black man, to weigh in on those sorts of comments when he’s remained silent in the face of a number of racist comments about me,” Cameron said. “Where was he when someone accused me of eating ‘coon flakes,’ depicted me as a member of the KKK, or his people engaged in racist tropes about my work ethic?”

Will Kentuckians vote for a Black candidate?

Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist backing Cameron and political commentator, said the GOP is “very, very proud of the diversity that has risen to the top both at the state party and nationally.” When his opponents attack Cameron based on his race, Jennings said they’re “showing their true colors,” which only helps Cameron.

“Nothing enrages Republicans more than to hear liberals level obviously racist insults at Black people just because they happen to be conservative or Republican,” Jennings, who is white, said. “And so the fact that it happens to him is not a surprise, and it does enrage people like me, but it truthfully, ultimately, it endears Daniel more to people, to face down that sort of racism and and keep plowing forward.”

Jennings contrasted that with Beshear, a “rich, white guy of extreme privilege.” When Beshear or other white liberals make their arguments against Cameron, Jennings said, they “ring hollow.”

“They’re trying to explain why this Black guy just doesn’t get it,” he said. “I mean, it makes them all sound ridiculous.”

Jennings also addressed the “lazy punditry” that has followed Cameron’s political campaigns, including that he won’t perform well in some parts of the state because he is a Black candidate. Kentucky, with a population of just over 4.5 million people, is about 87% white and just under 9% Black.

“Every single time I hear somebody say that, Daniel turns around and does even better than anyone would have expected,” Jennings said.

In a 12-person primary, Cameron came out on top in 108 of Kentucky’s 120 counties, and won with nearly 48% of the Republican votes cast. And in his attorney general primary in 2019, Cameron bested a white, male opponent — a sitting state senator — by nearly 11 percentage points.

According to Cameron, his election against Beshear is about “core values” — not race.

“It’s not what you look like, but where your values stand,” he said.