We are eight days away from Election Day.

And here's another sign that voter turnout could be high.

Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams says more than 16,000 Kentuckians took advantage of excused absentee voting last week.

9700 were registered Republicans and 5700 were Democrats.

Secretary Adams says this was a 114% increase in turnout from 2022, which is again why he's encouraging Kentuckians to vote early.

Any registered voter can cast a ballot in person starting on Thursday.

No excuse in person.

Early voting continues this Friday and Saturday.

You can find polling locations and your county at go vote dot k y dot gov.

Election day, of course, is November 5th, a week from tomorrow.

And Katie hopefully will be your source for accurate and comprehensive election coverage with the best analysis anywhere.

We'll have live coverage beginning on K2 at 8 p.m. Eastern on election night.

Now, aside from the presidential contest, Kentucky's major ballot item is not about candidates, but a proposed change to the Constitution that could empower state lawmakers to use public dollars on nonpublic education amendment two has drawn a lot of interest across the state and especially in northern Kentucky.

And there are some competitive state legislative races that area.

Journalists like Lacey Starling are keeping their eyes on.

Lacey is the president and CEO of the mostly online publication called Link and K Y that reports on several Kentucky counties flanking Cincinnati.

I talked to her last week about how the final days of the campaign season are shaping up there.

More in tonight's Election 2024 coverage.

Lacey Starling, the president and CEO of Link and K. Why, thank you so much for your time today.

We appreciate it.

Thank you, Renee.

It's a pleasure to be here.

So with just a handful of days until Election Day, tell us about what's happening in northern Kentucky, particularly and the state legislative races there.

Yes, well, here in northern Kentucky, we have two races that I think are going to be the ones to watch when it comes to the state legislature.

First is Representative Stephanie Deets and her opponent, Erin Curran.

The big news that came out yesterday was that Mitch McConnell's super PAC registered to support three candidates in Kentucky, and one of them was Stephanie Deets.

She flipped the district when she won in 22.

And it sounds like there is some concern about it flipping back to blue in 24.

So that was a very interesting update.

The other interesting race to follow is Representative Rachel Roberts, who covers the area that is over Newport, and she retired after this session.

And so her seat, she was the only Democrat in the Northern Kentucky caucus and her seat is up for grabs.

And we have two candidates there, Matt Layman, the Democrat, and Terry Hatton, the Republican.

And so it'll be interesting to see if that seat stays in Democrat hands or if it flips to a Republican seat.

So what are the dynamics or the issues that are really coming into play with House District 65 and House District 67 that you mentioned?

So both of those District 65 and 67 are a mix of urban and suburban.

And so there's an interesting sort of conflict that happens because obviously in the more urban parts of the district have a somewhat different concerns than the more suburban.

And so they were both also redistricted before the 22 elections.

And so we're seeing more of that come into play.

Again this year.

And my folks that I talked to after the primary, when Representative Dietz made it through the primary, told me that they were concerned about her district, especially if Democratic turnout in northern Kentucky was particularly high because it had been a blue district before and flipped to red in 22.

And so I think the early voting numbers that Secretary of State Adams released when he was talking about earlier this week, about the number of absentee ballots that have been requested in Kentucky, points toward large turnout throughout the state.

And so I think that is fueling some of that concern, perhaps.

And what inspired Senator McConnell to turn his super-PAC toward supporting Representative Deets in her race?

Yeah, and that's I'm glad you brought that up, because we know that Secretary Adams had reported when we spoke that week that the Democrat seemed to have had a little bit of the edge over the Republicans.

Right.

In terms of those absentee ballots.

But we also heard on a national level, because President Trump had really made a very full throated appeal for Republicans to get to the polls early.

There were some thinking that perhaps it was the Republicans that were driving those numbers.

So do you have any kind of insight on which way it could be going there when it comes to the absentee early voting?

Honestly, no.

Everyone that I talk to has a different answer on that.

So it just feels like one of those elections where it's really going to come down to election night and maybe the days to follow to see what that turnout looks like by party.

Yeah, we have heard that in the state Senate that the Senate Budget chairman, Kristen McDaniel, call him Chris McDaniel is running ads.

Is that.

True.

And is he in jeopardy?

Well, he certainly is running ads and I live full disclosure in Senator McDaniel's district.

And so I've also received a number of mailers, and I think I'm up to four now that I've gotten from Senator McDaniel.

It's interesting.

At the beginning of the race, I would have said, no, he's not at risk at all because he's popular.

He's done a lot of work for northern Kentucky.

He's brought a lot of money.

He holds a very powerful seat.

But Jennifer Sierra, his competitor, is also running a strong campaign.

Lots of doorknocking, lots of mailers and so it would be a shock if that race turned out to be more competitive or perhaps even flipped, just given how I think all of us perceived it at the beginning.

Yeah, that would be something we keep our eyes on on Tuesday, November the fifth, for sure.

Well, how are the constitutional amendments playing there and your coverage area, particularly constitutional amendment number two, which we shorthanded like all school choice and you have had forums on for people to talk about their issues, how they feel about the issue and and really be informed about it.

Well, it is certainly the most active when you talk about on our Facebook forums or you talk about, you know, letters to the editor, we've received probably almost 30 letters to the editor just about Amendment two.

And that's a lot of activity for this area.

One of the things that affects that is the the size of our diocesan school district here in northern Kentucky.

There are 38 diocesan schools here.

And so the diocese has a lot of power in northern Kentucky and a lot of platform.

So the Catholic schools are sending home emails to parents saying vote yes on two.

There's a lot of yard signs.

But we also have large public school districts up here.

And that means that there's a lot of contention between the public school districts and the diocesan schools on this particular issue.

And if I had to make a guess, I don't think I could on this one either.

Honestly, we haven't seen any polling on amendment to for northern Kentucky.

And I genuinely think it's going to come down to election night and it's going to be another nail biter for us.

Wow.

Well, certainly.

And we will have the pleasure of connecting with you on election night for Katie's coverage.

That will be on Katie, too.

So we thank you for making some time available for us and for our viewers statewide.

And thank you for the work you're doing on the campaign trail.

We really appreciate it.

Lacey Starling with Link and K, we appreciate your time.

Thank you, Renee.