Get ready, KY voters: Here are the state races to watch in 2024.

When the clock struck 4 p.m. in Frankfort Friday, the Secretary of State’s office closed the literal and metaphorical door on filing to run for office this year in Kentucky.

The field is officially set for major races in the Kentucky House and Senate, U.S. Congress and Kentucky Supreme Court.

In the House, where an election is held in all 100 districts every even-numbered year, Republicans currently outnumber Democrats 79 to 20. A total of 78 Democrats filed to run in 57 different districts. In all, 114 Republicans ran for State Representative in 88 different districts.

Republicans are challenging in all but the deepest blue districts. Democrats played in all districts they currently hold and vied for most districts where data shows they could be competitive.

However, there were some notable exceptions across the state. No Democratic candidates filed to run in four districts where Gov. Andy Beshear won his re-election bid last November by double digits, including districts in Bowling Green, Morehead, Louisville and Henderson.

Of the 30 House districts Beshear won that are now held by Republicans, Democrats challenged 17.

There are plenty of primary races to watch in the House as well, with new candidates filing to join the ranks of “liberty-aligned” Republican members, some of which have drawn the ire of GOP legislative leadership.

The Senate will feature two fairly high-profile primaries: Senate Minority Floor Leader Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, the longest-serving Senator in Frankfort, drew a primary challenge from former state representative and candidate for U.S. Congress Attica Scott.

On the Republican side, Sen. Adrienne Southworth, R-Lawrenceburg, faces an intriguing primary with two well-known challengers from the new part of her district.

With mostly entrenched Congressional members and the recently redrawn Sixth Congressional District map cutting out the Democratic-friendly Franklin County, Kentucky’s congressional races do not hint to much obvious contention.

However, a crowded Democratic primary in Central Kentucky and a face-off of bitter enemies in the Northern Kentucky GOP primary are worth keeping an eye on.

Here are the races, at first blush, the Herald-Leader politics team will be watching:

House District 45 general and primary election

Rep. Killian Timoney, R-Lexington, will face Fayette County Republican Thomas Jefferson in the May primary. Jefferson, who shares a name with an American Founding Father, has received the support of many ‘Liberty’ Republicans across the state in his run against Timoney. Candidates aligning under the banner of ‘Liberty’ Republicanism are generally further right than the mainstream of the party on issues like gun control and are skeptical of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, one of the state’s most powerful lobbying organizations.

Timoney, meanwhile, has drawn fire from some conservatives for being one of the most socially moderate GOP House members and voting against Senate Bill 150, which LGBTQ rights advocates said was one of the most “anti-trans,” bills in the nation.

Further, when he was carrying a bill to ban so-called “gray machines” (slot-like games that had popped up in convenience stores around the state) from Kentucky, a mysterious group ran anti-trans television ads against him highly critical of his vote against a ban on transgender girls from girls school sports.

Then there’s the general election. Adam Moore is the Democrat running in the 45th District, which Beshear won by more than 21 percentage points and former Republican president Donald Trump won by three points. There are only two other Republican-held districts that Beshear won by more.

Suburban standoffs

Including Timoney’s district, the majority of the most heated general election battles look to be in the suburbs.

Several races on the edge of Jefferson County, from the south to the east, are politically purple.

Five Louisville Republicans House members — Susan Witten, Ken Fleming, Jared Bauman, Emily Callaway and Jason Nemes — face Democratic challengers one year after Beshear won their districts by double digits.

Democratic President Joe Biden even won Witten and Fleming’s districts by slim margins in 2020, while Trump carried the other three by 7 to 12 percentage points, according to CNAlysis. All five face Democratic challengers, three of whom have backgrounds in public education.

Meanwhile, southern Jefferson County Democrat Rep. Rachel Roarx is looking to hold off Republican challenger Carrie Sanders McKeehan after winning by three percentage points in 2022.

In Northern Kentucky, two House races to watch will be Edgewood Republican Stephanie Dietz’s first re-election battle after knocking off a prominent Covington Democrat in House District 65 last cycle, and the race to replace outgoing House Minority Whip Rachel Roberts, D-Newport.

Aaron Currin, a Fort Wright attorney, is lined up to take on Dietz.

For the Roberts seat, former Democratic congressional candidate Matthew Lehman is running against the GOP primary winner between Jerry Gearding and military veteran Terry Hatton.

In suburban Lexington and Georgetown, House Minority Caucus Chair Cherlynn Stevenson, D-Lexington, is the only member of Democratic House leadership running again. If history is an indication, expect a tight race: Stevenson has her three general elections by three points or fewer.

This year, she faces Scott County Republican challenger Vanessa Grossl, a government affairs professional and business executive.

Grossl was a Democrat not so long ago, once serving on a delegation for the Scott County Democratic Party alongside state party chair Colmon Elridge.

This race could see a high amount of investment, as Democrats will want to defend the only member of leadership up for re-election and Republicans have likely targeted Stevenson because of that.

Contested primaries for Congress

In the Lexington area, the Sixth Congressional District features five Democrats lining up for a shot to beat Rep. Andy Barr, who’s held the seat for more than a decade.

Randy Cravens, who garnered 3.6 percent of the vote (almost 9,000 votes) as a Democratic write-in in 2022, is running on the ballot this time. He’ll face Lexington Democrats Todd Kelly, Shauna Rudd, Jonathan Richardson and Don Pratt in the primary.

Last cycle, Geoff Young won the primary. Young, a perennial candidate and harsh critic of the state Democratic party and Biden, did not receive any support from Beshear or the Kentucky Democratic Party.

Ever since winning a close three-point race over former Democratic candidate Amy McGrath in 2018, Barr has proven tough to beat. He won in 2020 by 17 points and in 2022 against Young by 29 points.

In Northern Kentucky, Thomas Massie will face a vocal critic of his in Eric Deters, a former attorney who finished fourth in the GOP gubernatorial primary. Massie publicly denounced Deters for racist and offensive statements he made in the summer when GOP gubernatorial nominee Daniel Cameron was planning to attend a rally hosted by Deters.

Cameron later pulled out and the event was canceled.

Deters told the Herald-Leader he switched his registration to Republican to run in the primary against Massie.

Central KY to elect new state Supreme Court justice

Only one seat on the Kentucky Supreme Court is up for re-election this year, and that’s being vacated by Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Laurence VanMeter.

Kentucky Court of Appeals Judge Pamela Goodwine of Lexington announced soon after VanMeter made it public last September that he would not seek re-election. In November, Erin Izzo, a Lexington attorney at Landrum & Shouse, announced the same.

It remains to be seen if this election will grow increasingly partisan or gain some traction among conservative outside spending groups, as several Kentucky judicial races did last cycle when conservatives were handed defeats across the board.

A surprise Dem primary challenge in Louisville

Senate Minority Floor Leader Gerald Neal, D-Louisvill, is the longest-serving senator in Kentucky, having served since 1989. He will be challenged by prominent Louisville Democrat, Attica Scott, for his Senate District 33 seat.

Scott said she’s running not to challenge Neal directly, but to advocate for such issues as police reform and public education. She also said she believes in term limits.

Scott has served on Louisville Metro Council, and was a state representative before she fell short in the Third Congressional District Democratic primary to Morgan McGarvey.

“I’m not taking him on,” Scott said. “I’m fighting for the people in District 33... I know it’s time for a fresh perspective.”

Another Democrat, Michael W. Churchill Jr., also has filed to run.

Who’s the real conservative?

Many Republican primary battles will involve candidates who align with the ‘Liberty’ wing of the party and those who don’t.

In Western Kentucky, Liberty-backed Asa Waggoner will face off against Ryan Bivens, a soy bean farmer from Hodgenville in the GOP primary for the deep red House District 24.

Rep. Brandon Reed, R-Hodgenville, withdrew from the race Friday.

Rep. Josh Calloway, R-Irvington, made a name for himself as one Frankfort’s most vocal conservative firebrands last session. This cycle, he’s facing a primary challenger in Julie Cantwell, a member of Kentucky Moms for Medical Cannabis.

“I feel like Josh Calloway has spent a lot of time on social media picking on specific groups, and that doesn’t sit well with me… I want to bring people together,” Cantwell said Friday.

In the Senate, Rep. Steve Rawlings, R-Burlington, is facing former Florence mayoral candidate Duane Froelicher to replace outgoing Sen. John Schickelt in the Northern Kentucky Senate District 11.

The race to replace Rawlings in the Hose could get interesting, as former House Judiciary Committee Chair Ed Massey is running to regain his seat (Rawlings beat him in a 2-to-1 margin) against former political operative turned attorney TJ Roberts in the Republican primary.

Sen. Adrienne Southworth, R-Lawrenceburg, faces a three-way GOP primary with two prominent Shelby County challengers, Aaron Reed and Ed Gallrein, for her Senate District 7 seat. Southworth, who has drawn criticism from Senate Republican leadership for her comments challenging Kentucky’s election integrity, saw her seat change dramatically after the GOP-led redistricting effort in 2022.

Also in the Senate, former state representative Lynn Bechler is running against Sen. Jason Howell, R-Murray. Bechler says Howell has not been conservative enough for the people in the far West Kentucky Senate District 1.

Large Dem field in Eastern Kentucky

Rep. Danny Bentley, R-Russell, is retiring from his House District 98 and one Republican and four Democrats are vying for his seat.

In the past several years, the story of the once-strong Eastern Kentucky Democratic party has largely been one of decay – with Beshear’s 2023 numbers proving an exception to that.

Just two elected statehouse Democrats remain in Sen. Robin Webb, D-Grayson and Rep. Ashley Tackett Leferty, D-Martin of Senate District 18 and House District 95. The general election could prove a test to see if Democrats can gain ground at the state level in Eastern Kentucky.

Bentley won his last general election challenge, which took place in 2018, by about 10 percentage points.