Our two political pundits are here today for Inside Kentucky Politics, Trey Grayson and Bob Babich.

It's my first time sitting down with you all, but you're familiar faces for us here.

Thank you for stopping by the studio to be.

Here with.

You.

On the show.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Excited for you.

Thank you.

Well, there's a lot for us to talk about today, so let's get into it.

I want to start first with the six district congressional race.

Things are heating up there.

Pretty one interesting one to watch.

So you've got Republican Ralph Alvarado taking on Democrat Zach Debo.

And national Democrats seem to be taking an interest in this race.

So I want to ask first.

Talk to us about, you know, is it going to be an uphill battle for Dumbo who has the advantage here?

When we talk about things like name recognition, funding, even the endorsements they've gotten to kick us off with that.

You know, this is a district and obviously the boundaries have changed over the years.

But traditionally, the sixth district has been one of the swung back and forth between Republicans, Democrats going back decades.

You know, going back, you know, 30, 40, 50 years.

But it's so it's an open seat.

The district is more Republican now than it's used to because of the growth of the Republican Party and surrounding areas, offsetting the growth of the Democratic Party in Fayette County.

When this race began, I think we all thought Alvarado would be a slight favorite.

He has run before and part of the district, having come out of Clark County and represented as kind of the northern part of the district.

But the reality is, the money's probably going to be pretty similar.

You know, the last report they did each raised about a million and a half dollars.

And then the big news this week was the triple C, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that targeted Dumbo, which I guess probably wasn't a surprise, but it shows that they think he's got a chance.

And Alvarado is not an incumbent.

He's not you know, he's running for the first time district wide.

He won comfortably in the primary.

That was who the party wanted to be.

The Republicans wanted.

But it's a competitive race.

Yeah.

And Mike, you mentioned that it's this red to blue program that the DQ is is taking an interest in that they really want to flip it blue.

Yeah.

If you're trying to put together you know the Democrats want to take control.

The House Republicans want to stop that right.

And so this is one of these seats.

It's probably one of the stretch seats.

Most people think the Democrats are going to win the House because they don't have to pick up a few seats.

But this is the kind of difference between having a five vote margin and a ten vote margin, or 15 vote margin.

And so that's they're trying to stretch the field.

Analysts I think have this is a lean Republican.

But I suspect we're going to that's going to change going forward.

Don't you think.

Yes.

It's very competitive.

Exciting really, for the district to have a race that is in contention and a lot of focus.

Alvarado's well known.

He was also on a statewide ticket, for governor and, trying to watching that race, saw him get well known everywhere, including the balance of the sixth district.

A demo came from way back.

He was not a well-known name and kept moving up in the primary and then took it, I was at Lexington when both candidates spoke.

They gave him the questions in advance.

They were respectful of each other.

Not, an unkind word, really.

Maybe a little edge there once or twice.

But for that group of key business people, you had to walk out saying, those are two impressive people.

They're both going to make a very strong impression.

They both already have a lot of support.

I would say probably leans a little red because it's been red, but the Democrats see a chance they're going to make an investment here if they start making the investment.

And that's a key indicator that it's not working out.

If they keep putting the investment or increase the investment, then it says they have a chance.

That's true of every district where Republicans and Democrats nationally have to pick and choose.

They can't go every place.

And one thing that's interesting is this actually, in some respects, it helps Alvarado.

Because he can say, look, see this?

I need your money.

I need your volunteer time.

I need your vote.

Say Republicans come out and vote.

So he's going to try to use this, to to help bolster his chances in the fall.

Yeah.

Both counties have a chance to go to their base and say, okay, I need you more than ever.

Yeah.

If it's 5050.

Yeah.

And you can make that case, then come along.

We got to tip it.

We got to got to make it work.

Yeah.

In that Commerce Lexington event, do you think that we're going to see these two formally debate one another before November gets here?

After that happened, I thought if you could take this on the road in the district would be great for people.

But I don't think candidates really lean that way.

They're going to have to do other things to get the right vote in the right place, raise the money and pull off a win if they would do it, be a different kind of approach and a very positive approach, but it takes a heck of a lot of time to pull that off.

Yeah, and it also be great.

I think if they did something here, you know, on their.

Yes.

Watch it.

Yeah.

We'll take it.

Well, another topic, a pretty big hot summer issue.

These automatic license plate readers.

People mostly know them as flock cameras because that's the popular company who makes them right.

But there has been a I mean, we've reported across the state, people are considering the cities are considering the use of these.

Some are even saying, no, we're taking back our contract.

Newport did that.

Hartford in western Kentucky, Kentucky's considering that Kentucky did pass House Bill 58 this year.

That set some guidelines.

For example, people can't store the camera data for longer than 90 days.

If a law enforcement agency is using these, they have to publish their usage policy.

But I want to ask, you know, is there any appetite for further legislation to rein these in?

That wouldn't surprise me.

This has been a really we were talking off camera how quickly this is, developed as a story.

You know, for those watching the cameras, not the old speed trap cameras or, you know, where they could send you a ticket.

This is simply it takes a photo of the back of your car and it aggregates it all.

And then law enforcement can go look and see if they're looking for somebody.

So Newport was a great example.

They actually were able to track down a shooter, through the use of that.

But there's concerns that folks could go in.

A police officer could get a disgruntled police officer go in there for personal usage, or states could start connecting the dots.

Some call it a, you know, by invasion of my privacy.

And so we're seeing folks showing up at these meetings saying, what the heck is going on?

And, so it's become a big deal.

And I suspect over the next couple weeks it's going to become a bigger deal.

A lot of cities had opted into this because it looked like a great law enforcement tool.

But there's concerns about privacy.

And we're starting to see some rollback now.

Bob, where do we see or do we see is this being a Partizan issue.

For the conservative psyche?

You want to be supportive of police, but you don't want this invasion of your privacy.

And, that's the dimension here, not just for Republicans, but Democrats and independents and everybody.

It's a valuable tool for police.

And broadly, I think law enforcement is supported in many ways.

So using this for efficiency and effectiveness is a good thing.

But if you look at it from, a very personal side, where does that go?

Who gets that?

What are they really after?

It's different.

It's a different part of technology.

Just as data centers have become this massive argument, and now you're seeing some folks from the other side say, hold on, wait a minute.

We've rushed into that issue with opposition, and the thought cameras are going to experience the same thing.

We're going to rush into hearings because the supported people probably don't care enough to go to a hearing and offset 300 of their friends with a different message.

It's just a different sort of dynamic.

Yeah.

I also think it seems like one of the things and data centers is like, this flock is like this, and others is there's just a lack of trust with institutions nowadays, from people on the left and on the right.

And so this is just feeding in like that.

People don't trust what the government is going to do with their data.

And so if they have it, because in theory, you can follow somebody around.

And now there's some great.

But we've got the 90 day rule.

Maybe the legislature rolls it back to 30.

You can look yourself up.

Has somebody look, you're supposed to have a warrant or some type of document.

Should you require a warrant?

Excuse me?

Or just a request that's transparent.

So there's some safeguards you can build in.

But the lack of trust, it seems like a dominant thread.

Right now in so many policy debates.

And the lead and that's includes government that includes corporations.

I mean, we're questioning capitalism in different circles, including in the corporate circles.

That's a different attitude, that's a different emotion.

And anything that is structured through major organizations, including government, is going to get a sharp public rebuke, before anybody can even catch up.

That's just where we are as a country, back and forth and back and forth.

Anti-government, red, blue doesn't matter.

Yeah, certainly a divisive issue and so much more we could discuss.

Like you said, data center is very similar topic to you, but we'll keep an eye out to see where the attitudes fall as we get closer to the next legislative session, which will be here sooner than we think.

Yes, we appreciate your political insights so much.

Will again have so much more we could discuss.

But thank you.

We'll see you again sometime.

Safe for you.

Thank you I appreciate that.

Thank you all for being here today.