KY congressional contest is a race to the right, complete with a gun giveaway

It’s shaping up to be a duel of which candidate is more conservative. And one of them is taking the unusual campaign approach of giving away a gun to try to attract voters over the July 4 holiday.

Republican U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Lewis County, who has been in Congress since 2012 representing Northern Kentucky’s 4th District, claims on his campaign website that he is “Kentucky’s most conservative Congressman on the job.”

He often has drawn public attention for advocating libertarian policies while typically voting for and being involved with the Republican Party.

Now, Claire Wirth of Oldham County is starting her Republican campaign to unseat Massie next year with inspiration from controversial freshman U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia. She has been touting since May 24 on her campaign’s Facebook page the giveaway of an AM-15 pistol and how to contribute to her campaign.

Massie said he understands why anyone would want a chance to win a free gun but “this candidate is full of other surprises, like the fact she just recently started living in Kentucky.” Massie’s campaign also produced records that showed Wirth did not start voting in Kentucky elections until the 2019 general election.

Wirth, who is involved in real estate and investment with Wirth Capital and is making her first bid for public office, said she moved with her family to Kentucky in January 2018 from Arizona.

She said her family was looking “for a red state that didn’t have the problems Arizona has with illegal immigrants.”

“This is the reason we moved from Arizona to Kentucky only to find out our Congressman was voting against the border wall. Illegal immigration costs the United States over $132 billion per year, so this is very much an issue any fiscal conservative should address.”

Massie voted in February 2019 to support a Democratic-led resolution to block then-President Trump’s plan to build a wall on the country’s southern border, saying it violated the Constitution.

Massie said his last primary opponent “couldn’t run to the right of me, so he ran to the Trump of me. That strategy yielded him a whopping 19 percent”of the vote.” Massie defeated Covington attorney Todd McMurty in the 2020 GOP primary election.

Wirth is hoping that Trump will endorse her in the race. Her website notes that Trump said in March 2020 that his party should “throw Massie out” of the GOP.

Several of his congressional colleagues and Trump got angry at Massie. His opposition to a $2 trillion coronavirus relief package forced lawmakers to return to the Capitol to vote on it. Leaders of both parties had hoped to pass the measure on a voice vote. Massie defended his actions.

Wirth said Trump knows she is the candidate in the race more aligned with his values.

The gun she is giving away, she said, is designed for protection or sport and shows her strong commitment to the right to bear arms.

Massie, an avid gun collector, said his 2nd Amendment credentials are impeccable.

Persons interested in winning the gun Wirth is giving away can register and donate $25 to $2,900, which is the maximum an individual can contribute in next year’s Republican primary election

Her Facebook post also says a person may register to be eligible for the gun she values at $1,100 to be given away the Fourth of July without any donation. She notes that it was “made right here in Kentucky’s Fourth District by Anderson Manufacturing, a family-owned business with over 30 years of innovation” in Hebron in Boone County.

Comments on the post range from “Dat weapon needs ta be in my hands brother!” to “This is an embarrassment to my party. And only furthers my desire to live in a cave.”

“The Second Amendment is a cornerstone of our republic” says Wirth’s campaign website. She promises that she “will deny any incremental gains attempted by the Democrats to erode our Bill of Rights.”

Wirth’s gun giveaway comes as President Biden announces various efforts to control gun violence. The National Public Radio reported June 17 that this year is on a pace to be the most violent year for the U.S. in two decades.

The Gun Violence Archive reported July 2 that there have been 22,090 gun deaths in America this year. That is 10,012 by homicide and 12,078 by suicide. It reported 318 mass shootings so far this year, defined as incidents in which at least four people have been shot or killed, not including the shooter.

Gun sweepstakes have been a feature of life in parts of the United States for years, but they now are becoming more frequently used by politicians in trying to lure prospective supporters, says political consultant Jim Cauley of Louisville.

“We are seeing more and more candidates, typically Republicans, across the nation in their elections raffling guns,” said Cauley, who managed Steve Beshear’s successful campaign for Kentucky governor in 2007 and Barack Obama’s successful senatorial campaign in Illinois in 2004. He said he was not familiar with gun giveaways in Kentucky political elections.

Wirth said she got the idea for her gun giveaway from Republican U.S. Rep. Greene, a far-right conspiracy theorist who is a strong supporter of former president Donald Trump. Greene gave away an AR pistol this year and organized several gun draws before her election in 2020.

For her gun giveaway, Wirth worked with WinRed, the official online fundraising platform designed to help Republican candidates. Trump and the Kentucky Republican National Committee have officially endorsed the platform.

WinRed was launched in 2019 to compete with the Democratic Party’s success in online grassroots funding with their platform ActBlue, which started in 2004. WinRed and ActBlue did not respond to questions from the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Cauley said Wirth’s gun giveaway might get her some publicity but the question is how much can she raise with a raffle. “You need millions to knock off a congressional incumbent,” he said.

What does the law say about gun giveaways in political campaigns?

Christian Hilland, deputy press officer for the Federal Election Commission, said the commission cannot comment on the campaign activity of specific federal candidates and their committees, but, “generally speaking, selling or raffling items are permitted for fundraising purposes.”

While federal law allows candidates for federal offices like Congress to use campaign giveaways, Kentucky law prohibits candidates for state and local offices like the Kentucky legislature or a city council from conducting a campaign raffle, said John R. Steffen, executive director of the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance.

State law defines a raffle as a form of “charitable gaming” under the jurisdiction of the Department of Charitable Gaming.

Under current Kentucky law, charitable gaming can only be conducted to benefit schools or organizations that qualify as charitable organizations under the Internal Revenue Code.

Political campaigns and committees are not charitable organizations under the Internal Revenue Code. Instead they are political organizations., said Steffen.