A Republican mega-donor is pouring money into the race for Kentucky governor, spending millions to demolish the Republican lead in an increasingly acrimonious primary.
Kelly Craft, a Trump-era UN ambassador and first-time candidate, and her supporters have flooded Kentucky airways with ads comparing her opponent, Attorney General Daniel Cameron, to former President Barack Obama and painting him as a “soft establishment teddy bear.” Not to mention the attacks on him centred on coal and crime, with one ad from a Craft-backed super PAC suggesting a very dubious link between Cameron and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a GOP bogeyman for his prosecution of former President Donald Trump in New York.
Craft’s money has upended Republican politics in Kentucky, propelling someone who was almost entirely unknown outside of significant donor circles to the top of the primary heap.
“Craft has bought herself into a two-person race,” said Scott Jennings, a state Republican operative who has remained impartial in the race. “The question is, ‘Is there still enough runway left?'”
However, the savage primary between the two may come at a cost. The Kentucky governorship is a top priority for Republicans this year, with Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear serving in a state Trump won by 26 points in 2020. The GOP primary’s circular firing squad is offering an already popular Democratic incumbent an opportunity to sway at least a fraction of Republican voters turned off by the infighting.
Although public polling for the primary has been extremely scarce in the race — a recent Emerson College/Fox56 poll released last week had Cameron at 30% and Craft at 24% — Republicans believe the race has tightened since the beginning of the year, when Cameron was widely thought to have a yawning lead.
Republicans point to two major turning points in the horizon: The only debate in which all three of the leading candidates will take the stage — a May 1 debate organised by Kentucky Educational Television — and probably the greatest event in the state all year: the Kentucky Derby. It occurs only ten days before the primary election.
According to campaign finance disclosures filed on Tuesday night, Craft has loaned her campaign $7 million since the beginning of the year, with an additional $260,000 coming from other donations. Cameron, on the other hand, raised slightly more than $400,000 within the same time frame.
Ryan Quarles, the state agricultural commissioner, might be a credible third candidate in the campaign if the struggle between Cameron and Kelly heats up. Quarles was at 15% in the Emerson survey, the only other candidate in double digits, and had a long list of endorsements from all 120 counties in the state.
Craft’s campaign and Commonwealth PAC, a super PAC backing her bid, have been launching the majority of the haymakers, with Craft having the TV airwaves all to herself until lately.
A pair of ads from her team attempted to link Cameron to President Joe Biden, Beshear, and Obama over the future of a West Virginia coal plant – a significant blow in a state that has long been a coal state.
In addition, the super PAC has used a prolonged motif of Cameron being a “soft establishment teddy bear,” physically changing Cameron into a stuffed bear in a suit at the end of the ads. The most recent is the Bragg ad, which criticises Cameron for supporting cash bail reform at one point. (“Prosecuted Trump!” declares the ad as a video of Bragg discussing bail reform plays.) It concludes by transforming the two men into teddy bears.
Cameron’s supporters have only recently begun to respond on the airwaves. Bluegrass Freedom Action, a pro-Cameron super PAC, released a new commercial on Tuesday claiming that a “desperate Kelly Craft falsely attacks” Cameron, while emphasising that Trump has endorsed Cameron, not Craft. In addition, the super PAC’s general consultant Aaron Whitehead questioned whether she was able to run for office under the state’s residence requirement in a statement to AWN.
“Absentee Ambassador Kelly Craft was a no-show for her previous job — and now she’s pulling the same trick on Kentuckians by trying to buy her way out of a scandal,” Whitehead said. “No one knows whether she actually lives in Kentucky or is still in Oklahoma, which could disqualify her from voting.”
The group’s accusation is based on AWN reporting from 2019 that indicated she spent almost a third of her time as US ambassador to Canada in Kentucky or Oklahoma, as well as federal and state political donations she had made with an Oklahoma address through the 2022 cycle. According to state law, governor candidates must be a “citizen and resident of Kentucky for at least 6 years next preceding his [sic] election.”
Craft’s campaign brushed off the super PAC’s criticism. “The only thing more palpable than the momentum behind Kelly Craft is the Cameron team’s desperation,” Craft’s senior adviser Kristin Davison said in a statement.
Cameron might potentially draw more heavily on Trump, who endorsed his campaign last summer, shortly after Craft and her husband, coal magnate Joe Craft, were prominently photographed with the former president at the Kentucky Derby but months before the launch of her own campaign.
Meanwhile, Kentucky’s most powerful Republican in Washington, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, has remained silent on the issue. He does, however, have deep ties to both candidates.
Craft and her husband have been financial supporters of McConnell and the Republican Party in general for a long time. The then-Senate majority leader played a key role in Craft’s nomination and confirmation as United Nations ambassador.
Cameron may have even stronger relationships. He worked in McConnell’s office for two years and was largely believed to be McConnell’s successor in the Senate when he ultimately leaves. Cameron’s decision to run for governor surprised many people in both Washington and Kentucky.
Craft’s adviser, Davison, took a shot at the two men’s strong relationship in her statement, saying Cameron’s staff was “having a bad morning after finding out their Mitch McConnell-groomed candidate has fallen a net 19 points over the last few weeks.”