Trail to ’23: Ad wars escalate. Lots of debate news. Jack Harlow name-drops Beshear.

This is part of an occasional Herald-Leader series, Trail to ‘23, to catch readers up on all the latest from this year’s crowded governor’s race (and occasionally other races). Earlier editions can be found online. There are less than three weeks left until the May 16 primary that will decide who among several GOP candidates will take on presumptive Democratic nominee Gov. Andy Beshear.

Keeping up with the Kentucky governor’s race this time of year is like drinking from a fire hose, so let’s get right to it because there’s a lot of ground to cover.

Ad wars escalate

This contest is getting expensive — and we’re still in primary season.

We’ve already reported that GOP hopeful Kelly Craft loaned her campaign $7 million and her husband, Joe, gave a PAC backing her another $1.5 million. But according to Medium Buying, which tracks political ad spending, the Kentucky governor’s race has already seen more than $8.4 million in TV and radio ad buys.

With the primary so close, Republican candidates are dropping new commercials like crazy, including the first television ads from Somerset Mayor Alan Keck and Commissioner of Agriculture Ryan Quarles.

Keck, who’s trailing far behind the front of the pack in recent polls, positions himself as an alternative for anyone “tired of the same ol’ politics.” The ad opens with snippets of the Craft and Daniel Cameron camps going after one another.

Quarles plays up his rural roots in his commercial, called “Born and Bred.” It shows him in a barn surrounded by hay bales and on a tractor. (No feature of his Big Red Truck, though!)

Craft, Cameron tout police support

Craft and Cameron are out with dueling ads about who backs the blue more.

Cameron, the attorney general, opens his ad with footage of Breonna Taylor protesters on the front lawn of his Louisville-area home in 2020. Police arrested 87 people during that protest, though felony charges were later dropped.

Cameron came under national scrutiny that year when his office declined to prosecute the officers who fatally shot Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman killed in her apartment by Louisville Metro Police officers. That scrutiny was renewed in 2022 when the Department of Justice indicted four officers in connection to the shooting and the falsified warrant that led police to her door — a warrant that Cameron’s office didn’t probe.

“They tried to intimidate me and my family,” Cameron says in the ad. “I stood strong then, and I won’t back down now.”

The new ad from Craft, the former ambassador to Canada and the United Nations under then-President Donald Trump, tries to tie Cameron to Democratic President Joe Biden. Biden’s “woke DOJ asked to take over the Louisville police department and Daniel Cameron let them.”

While it’s true that the DOJ did conduct a patterns and practices investigation into LMPD — the results of which were damning, especially in regards to racial disparities in policing — it’s not clear how Craft believes Cameron could have stopped the federal investigation.

Additionally, a liberal group was quick to spot that one of the officers featured in Craft’s ad, Alex Payne, was previously scrutinized for authoring police training materials advocating for the controversial “warrior” mindset.

Oklahoma!

One of the most recent attacks against Craft centers around claims that she doesn’t meet Kentucky’s residency requirement to be governor. We’ve already reported that Craft’s bombastic fellow GOP candidate Eric Deters is planning to challenge her residency in court, but now a PAC backing Cameron has launched a new website: OklahomaKelly.com.

Bluegrass Freedom Action’s website proclaims “Kentuckians can’t trust Kelly Craft” because she puts “Oklahoma over Kentucky,” is “buddies with Beshear,” an “absentee ambassador” and is “misleading Kentuckians.”

Craft’s campaign has dismissed the residency complaints, saying Craft is a Kentuckian through-and-through.

Debates. So many debates.

Four of the Republican candidates for governor — Keck, Quarles, Deters and Auditor Mike Harmon — debated in Northern Kentucky last Wednesday evening. The debate covered a lot of ground, but spent a fair bit of time focusing on regional issues. (Catch a Twitter thread of live coverage here.)

While Craft and Cameron were noticeably absent from that debate, they’ve both been invited to participate in the KET debate May 1. Keck, Quarles and Deters were also invited. That will air at 8 p.m. Monday.

And because we still, somehow, haven’t had enough debates, WDKY-Fox 56 will also host a debate May 9, though we don’t know the full lineup just yet.

Reminder: the primaries are May 16. Secretary of State Michael Adams said he is anticipating turnout between 15 and 19% of voters.

Jack Harlow name-drops Beshear

Amazingly, this isn’t the first time we mention the Louisville rapper Jack Harlow in our Trail to ‘23 roundup. (Remember that time Kelly Craft posted sneaky shots standing next to a very unamused-looking Harlow?)

Harlow released a new album Friday, on which he casually mentions hanging out with... Gov. Andy Beshear?

Yes, really.

“It can’t be that I simply make ear candy/ Especially when the industry could just plant me/ Especially when I didn’t grow up on Brandy/ Especially when I’m havin’ dinner in Frankfort with Andy.”

The shout-out is included on the song “It Can’t Be.”

The governor’s spokesperson confirmed the two have shared a meal: “Yes. The Governor and his family have had dinner with Jack Harlow in Frankfort. They had a great time listening to and getting to know Jack.”

She added, tongue-in-cheek: “The Governor is now considering launching a rap career after his second term.”

While the Kentucky Democratic Party loved the line, we’re here to be the bearer of bad news for them: public records show Harlow is registered to vote in Georgia and has not donated to Beshear’s re-election campaign (at least not as of the last filing period).

Beshears at State Dinner

Beshear had a high-profile week even before the Harlow feature.

The governor and first lady were in Washington, D.C., Wednesday for a state dinner honoring President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea. (Other invited guests included Chip and Joanna Gaines of house-flipping fame, Angelina Jolie and her son Maddox Jolie-Pitt and a looong list of political movers and shakers, and prominent Asian Americans.)

It was the Beshears’ first state dinner, which the governor attributes to the multi-billion dollar BlueOval SK battery manufacturing project in Glendale. SK is a South Korean company.

Beshear told C-SPAN his election won’t be “about what’s going on in the White House, but in the houses around Kentucky.” He said the race would be “very personal” and will center around creating good jobs, expanding health care and public education.

Speaking at the Team Kentucky update in Frankfort the next day, Beshear said he does “believe we could see some economic development opportunities coming out of” connections made at the dinner. He did not, however, comment on the South Korean President’s viral rendition of “American Pie.”

(You can see the Beshears at the seven-minute mark in this C-SPAN video.)

Poet laureate featured in attack ad

The Republican Governors Association crafted a video targeting Beshear for appointing famed Kentucky writer, Silas House, as the commonwealth’s new poet laureate.

The video shows Beshear talking about how proud he is to select House for the honor while overlaying tweets from openly gay, progressive Eastern Kentucky native.

“All Trump fans/defenders: you can kiss my gay country ass,” one of House’s tweets reads.

“Just another indication Beshear is WRONG for Kentucky,” the RGA tweeted with the video.

But the pushback against the video was strong, with Kentucky liberals quick to chime in defending House.

Another notable response from another Southern liberal: Grammy-award winning musician Jason Isbell.

“Silas is my friend and he’s a wonderful person and y’all can just stay mad,” Isbell tweeted.