I'm Renee Shaw.

It's time now for an inside Kentucky politics.

Look, we're doing a little remix today because we know we've got an important primary coming up in Kentucky in just a few days.

First, we're going to talk to Trey Watson, who is a Republican strategist, founder of Capital Range PR.

You know him.

Let's talk about some of these contests that you've got your eye on in these state House and Senate primaries.

Absolutely.

You know, I think we've got interesting contests in both ends of the state in the Middle, everywhere.

It's it's it's shaping up to be an interesting spring.

I think let's start in the second District out in far west Kentucky.

Richard Heath versus Kim Holloway is shaping up to be an interesting race.

You know, Richard Heath has run statewide twice for commissioner.

And sometimes that can put a strain on your relationship with your local constituents.

They feel like you're out running for office and not necessarily focused on them, but on a Richard.

He's from the area born and raised there, very dedicated to to the region, and he's been coming for a while.

And those people are incredibly hard to beat.

But what sort of toll that that shaping up to be a very competitive?

Why is it competitive?

Oh, I think there's a couple of local issues that are involved there.

We don't need to go into it.

Just, you know, some sometimes.

Local politics plays into.

This and.

Yeah, and sometimes, you know, a lot of times I'll be confused.

These these members, the general Assembly, often get themselves involved in some local issues that that end up hurting them, that you're sitting in Frankfort and you don't know that that you know what's going gone on there in Graves County that might affect the race.

So I think there is some some stress there, but I tend to believe the incumbents will pull them out in the end, especially some like Richard Heath has been there for a long time, knows how to work, work the area, go to the.

Other side of the state.

What's a good point to keep our eye on northern Kentucky?

There's a there's a whole collection of them up there, I think Marion Proctor versus Chris.

But they say it's going to be interesting.

I know that there's a lot of groups that are trying to they're aiming at Kim Moser.

I think she'll be all right.

The one that I'd keep an eye on is Felicia Rayburn versus Martin Wilkerson, which I think if you're looking for an incumbent with a chance to lose.

Mark Wilkerson ran in 2018 against Rick Ryan.

Tough election.

Rick Graham was a great candidate.

He moved on to the Beshear administration, opened that seat up.

Felicia Rayburn one is in there now and says that raised her.

He's he's working hard.

And, you know, she's taken some bad votes.

She voted sided with the governor and Democrats on the budget, on the crime bill, on a rules package.

So you have I think there's some ammo there that Wilkerson And outside groups can use against her.

That's what I'd really keep an eye on.

And the one.

Boone 66.

Right.

See and see.

And T.J. Roberts.

If you live up there, I'm sorry, you're going to see lots of mail, lots and lots of radio, lots of digital.

I think everybody is kind of in the boat on that one.

T.J. Roberts is a very interesting person.

I think you have an opinion on him one way or the other.

Ed Massie, former representative T.J., is very far right.

Very far right.

And Ed's a little bit more moderate towards the middle.

Been there before.

Former education committee chairman.

I think you're going to see a lot of money spent on that race.

It's going to that one in particular is going to get very dirty, very nasty.

We've seen some of that already.

Yes, we'll Google that because it'll come up pretty easy.

Absolutely.

Michael Meredith has got a contest, although maybe since some recent news has come out against his challenger, Kelsey Rourke, maybe that is not as competitive as it was before.

Yes.

District 19.

Yeah.

I think Mr. Rock is going to be actually in a courtroom on primary day facing a failure to pay child support charges, which I think it's insane because a lot of these candidates were you saw big upsets in 2022.

I think they hope to do that again in some areas in 2020 for those candidates that they kind of pinned their hopes on to be upset people, upset incumbents.

They're not raise as much money as the people did in 2022.

And the outside groups they can set they can set a new playing field, they can change.

The playing field is.

But at the end of day, the candidate in the campaign has to have the resources and the ability to take advantage of the playing field.

Ads Don't think when you look at the campaign finance reports and you hear the activity in them in the sport coming in, I don't think that those challengers are going to have the power to do it.

Trey Watson You always put the jam on the lower shell for us.

We appreciate it.

We'll see you soon, my friend.

Thank you, Renee.

Casey, back to you.

Thanks, Renee.

And I'm here with Morgan Eaves, executive director for the Kentucky Democratic Party.

Thanks, Morgan.

Hi.

Thanks, Morgan.

I think you all can give a interesting perspective on your position and parties in the primary season.

So how does the Kentucky Democratic Party handle the primary season?

For us at CDP?

We don't endorse during the primary season.

We don't give money to candidates during the primary season.

But what we can do is make sure that any voter data we have, both candidates and a primary have access to it and any other tools that the party has that we can offer, We make sure that both folks have access to those.

So we kind of take the middle ground.

We don't endorse, we don't give money, and we just know that whichever candidate wins, that will be the candidate that we support as a party.

MORGAN Perhaps the biggest storyline during the primary season is over half of the seats in the state legislature On the House side were unopposed for Republicans.

Over 40% on the Senate side went unopposed.

So why didn't the Kentucky Democratic Party put up more candidates in these races?

Look, gerrymandering has made it a lot more difficult for Democrats across Kentucky, too, to win.

And that's just the reality of where we are today.

It's really difficult for a candidate to know that not only do they have a high probability of losing and some of these really, really red gerrymandered districts, but they're putting their name on the ballot and their family name, their kids, their mom, the entire family is going to get dragged through the mud just because that's where politics and polarization is today.

What I will tell you is that Governor Beshear and the party are really committed to supporting the candidates we have on the ballot now.

And we saw that when he increased his win to 5% in his reelection, he flipped a lot of counties from red to blue.

And, you know, this cycle is what it is.

We hope and know that we're going to pick up some seats, But for the following cycles and years to come, we will be looking at some of those counties where he flipped and focusing our recruitment efforts on those.

Of course, Republicans have supermajorities in the House and Senate, in the state legislature.

And so if you're looking past this election cycle, how will Democrats cut into those supermajorities?

Yeah, I think it's been really intentional about where we're looking to flip and following the data.

You know, one of the reasons that Governor Beshear and lieutenant governor won again is because they had so much collective trust from citizens of the Commonwealth.

And we need to find folks who already have that name ID and that trust within those targeted communities so that we can get them trained, get them on the ballot and flip some of those seats and make inroads in the state legislature.

Governor Beshear announced a super PAC earlier this year.

How will that super PAC come into play during the general election season in Kentucky?

I think the governor has been really clear that his in this together PAC is to help folks like him, you know, candidates that are running for different types of higher office, better that are in more red or sometimes purple states.

I think we will see his other PAC.

Heck bent.

That's more legislative issued Focus PAC.

I think we will see them chime in on some of maybe the ballot questions that folks will be dealing with in November.

Of course, we can't coordinate with them, so I just hope that they'll be helping us.

But yeah, that's pretty much it.

All right, Morgan, thanks for taking a couple of minutes.

Thank you, Casey.