Scott Jennings: Will Daniel Cameron remain the favorite in the GOP primary for governor?
Kentucky’s Republican gubernatorial primary had been a sleepy affair for months, with current Attorney General Daniel Cameron sitting well atop the field and facing little resistance from the other 11 candidates vying in the May 16 primary. But that was before the fur started flying—literally and figuratively—with two months to go as former United Nations Ambassador Kelly Craft and her affiliated Super PAC began a negative television advertising barrage against the front running Cameron.
Public and private polls in January and February all showed about the same thing – Cameron was somewhere in the low to mid-40s; Craft, after an early positive advertising campaign, was in second place in the low-teens; and two-term Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles was in the high single digits. Everyone else was 5% or less.
But in the last two weeks, Team Craft shook up the race by attacking Cameron directly, with her Super PAC using bizarre-if-memorable footage of a grizzly bear to accuse Cameron of being an “establishment teddy bear” who isn’t adequately taking on the Biden administration. Craft’s own campaign followed with an attack ad accusing Cameron of not fighting hard enough for Kentucky coal.
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Cameron is a bona fide celebrity within the Republican Party following his 2019 election and prime time address to the 2020 Republican National Convention. It isn’t clear that Republican voters—who internal polling shows genuinely love Cameron—will be swayed by the double-barreled ad onslaught, but Craft’s running a status quo campaign would’ve guaranteed an easy Cameron victory. Craft is also earning kudos from party insiders for her work ethic as she makes voluminous appearances on her “kitchen table tour.”
Cameron’s campaign strongly disputes Craft’s attacks but for now lacks the funding to rebut them with TV ads of his own; he’ll likely wait until April before launching his own advertising. Cameron has used his early endorsement from former President Donald Trump to inoculate himself against claims that he’s weak on anything.
Quarles will also have enough money to advertise as the May primary draws closer, but he cannot fund an early war against the front runner. His disposition is to let Craft and Cameron duke it out while he hangs around the rim for a tip in at the buzzer. His strategy is that if Craft’s attacks on Cameron are successful, the voters who believe them may not automatically switch to her campaign.
Quarles’s chief opponent in this lane is Alan Keck, the relatively unknown 38-year-old Mayor of Somerset who has generated some insider buzz in polished appearances before political and business groups. Keck turned in the most intriguing performance during a candidate forum hosted by Spectrum News on March 7.
While the other candidates adhered to conservative positions on every topic, Keck carved a more centrist path on abortion, immigration and expanded gambling. He even declined to define the word “woke” when asked by the moderator, despite the term being on the lips of most conservatives.
There’s a place for Keck’s strategy. Huge swaths of GOP primary voters live in the suburbs of Louisville and Lexington where there’s ample support for exceptions to abortion restrictions and expanded gambling. These white collar, college-educated Republicans may prefer Keck’s softer tone to the chaotic and bombastic politics championed by candidates like Trump and former Gov. Matt Bevin, who lost reelection due to abandonment from this group. Keck and Quarles are relying on the race taking a nasty turn, and there’s little wonder why Quarles branded himself as the ”bold ideas” candidate around the time Craft launched her assault on Cameron.
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The Spectrum candidate forum was a curious affair. There was no “debate,” as the moderator didn’t ask any follow up questions and none of the candidates engaged one another. The only mentions of Cameron by his opponents (Craft did not participate) were to praise his work as Attorney General.
Cameron probably couldn’t believe his luck at being ignored by opponents who are losing to him by 30-plus points. Bizarrely, the Republicans also failed to seriously engage incumbent Gov. Andy Beshear, who was barely mentioned until the final minute.
Craft realized that Cameron can’t be beaten unless he’s directly—and negatively—re-defined. Whether her message will succeed remains to be seen. Likewise, Republicans won’t reel in Beshear this fall by pretending he doesn’t exist, or that his approval rating isn’t well above water.
The eventual GOP nominee must re-define Beshear, who portrays himself as a non-partisan technocrat, into a crusading liberal who abused his COVID emergency powers and bungled his disaster responses. The Republicans should turn him into Kentucky’s Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor who enjoyed early COVID-era popularity before being revealed as a thin-skinned, error-prone charlatan who made serious professional and personal mistakes.
With two months to go, Cameron remains the favorite to win the GOP primary and Beshear remains a favorite for reelection. But there’s a lot of woods left to navigate, and more than a few bears lurking in the trees.
Scott Jennings is a Republican adviser, CNN political contributor and partner at RunSwitch Public Relations. He can be reached at Scott@RunSwitchPR.com or on Twitter @ScottJenningsKY.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Will Cameron stay the favorite in Kentucky GOP primary for Governor?
