and the fall races are set, including Barr and Booker in the U.S.

Senate battle.

Fourth District Congressman Thomas Massie goes down in defeat to Ed Gallon, who had President Trump's backing in the sixth district.

Republicans nominate Ralph Alvarado and Democrats pick Zack Dembo.

The NTSB holds revealing hearings over the Louisville UPS plane crash.

A lot of rain is chasing us into the Memorial Day weekend, and comment is next on KET.

Good evening.

I'm Bill Bryant, and we welcome you to comment on Kentucky.

A look back at and some analysis of the week's news in the Commonwealth and the guests on our panel of working Kentucky journalists tonight are Sylvia Goodman, Capitol reporter for Kentucky Public Radio.

Mason Brighton, political reporter for Spectrum News one, and John Cheeves, reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Also tonight, concerns about an invasive bass that has turned up in a Kentucky lake.

Let's get right to the Kentucky primary.

Voters decided races up and down the ballot.

The only statewide race was for the U.S.

Senate seat that Mitch McConnell will leave at the end of the year.

After 42 years of service.

Republicans nominated sixth District Congressman Andy Barr, and Democrats picked former state Representative Charles Booker.

>> Thank you, Mr.

President, for your powerful support.

I look forward to fighting alongside you to advance our America First agenda and deliver for Kentucky in the United States Senate.

[APPLAUSE] This victory is about the future and whether that future will be shaped by Kentucky, common sense, or the craziness of the extreme far left.

>> I'm running not simply as a Democratic nominee, but as a leader who will fight for all Kentuckians.

This campaign is for the people of Kentucky.

No matter your background, because we're all getting screwed.

We finally have the chance to elect leadership that will fight for us at a time when so many people are hurting.

That's what makes this moment so different.

We all realize we can't keep doing things the same, and I'm just proud to represent the possibility not only for Kentucky, but for this country.

Democracy, the pursuit of it.

It still lives.

>> Sylvia.

We had all seen the polling showing the Republican race close back in the spring.

Daniel Cameron leading until just a few weeks before the primary.

But everything seemed to really tilt when President Trump got involved in the race.

>> Right.

We saw some polling that started to show Barr taking a leading role in the primary.

But then the second that Trump put in that endorsement, we all saw the numbers shift pretty drastically after that.

And I think, you know, part of the issue was Daniel Cameron still had that 2023 loss hanging over him.

I think some Republicans never forgave him for losing to Beshear.

But also Andy Barr.

You know, he has his own credentials to to fall back on as a sitting congressman.

He's worked with Trump directly.

So if you're a big fan of Trump and you're going to look at that and say, this is the guy for me.

So I think all of that really led him to victory.

And as we've seen throughout this primary season, Trump's endorsement has really reigned supreme.

And, you know, it's hard to see that changing anytime soon.

>> John, he worked very hard to get that endorsement.

And he also worked very hard in the campaign.

>> He did.

Andy Barr had two themes throughout most of the campaign.

One was, I'll do whatever Donald Trump tells me to do at all times.

I'll be a little curious six months from now, if that is quite as golden, you know, as it is at the moment.

But it certainly worked in the Republican primary in May.

The other theme was that I will stand up to all of the liberals and the radicals and the woke mob that want to undermine our traditional Kentucky way of life.

And that's when you got things like the advertisement saying, it's not a sin to be white.

It's not a crime to be a man.

And that played sort of into the grievance politics that so successful, certainly in Republican primaries.

>> Mason, your thoughts on the race for the U.S.

Senate?

>> I think that if you were looking at this, there was always the chance that Andy Barr was going to end up on top.

I think once the endorsement from the president came down, I think that essentially sealed the deal.

And like we saw with some of the other races that we're going to talk about this evening, that's really rung true across Kentucky this year in the primary.

>> John Cameron tried to get voters to focus on what he called Kentucky values.

Once he did not get the president's endorsement, especially.

He also talked a lot about faith.

Barr seemed to stay on message that he felt was resonating with Kentucky voters.

>> He did.

>> Republican voters, we should say in the primary.

>> Daniel Cameron, who had, you know, one term as attorney general, still has a bright future doing something somewhere.

And nobody really laid a glove on him.

There was one negative ad about his time as attorney general, not really solving the war on drugs, but nobody really damaged him.

I think people came away still Republicans with a favorable impression of him.

He just didn't make the connection he needed to to win the Senate primary.

But, you know, people still seem to like him.

They just didn't vote for him in the numbers he needed.

>> And you mentioned, right, that he kind of did a little bit of a sea change there towards the end of this primary.

After the Trump endorsement came in, he aligned himself a little more closely with some of the more Liberty Wing folks in Northern Kentucky.

And he also, you know, kind of said that Andy Barr is part of the swamp, that he would be different, that he would be his own man, things like that.

And, you know, I also talked to some voters on Election Day who said that they really did like that.

Daniel Cameron emphasized faith.

He emphasized his Christianity.

He emphasized being anti-abortion, things like that.

That did resonate with some voters.

But clearly it was not enough to overcome that endorsement.

And Andy Barr.

>> And Cameron was better known going into this race.

So Barr had to work hard to become better known across the Commonwealth.

He also made the case that he's already doing the job.

We took note of that, noting his experience in the U.S.

House, which is a common path to the U.S.

Senate.

>> Sure, sure it is.

And also, you know, what I was thinking about is that he flipped his own House seat, the one that he currently sits in when he took it over when he won from a Democratic incumbent.

That sort of thing means a lot to some of the more politically minded folks who are thinking, who can win in this in this general election?

Now, I should note that the Cook Political Report says that this is a solid red seat.

I think that Booker says that he thinks that he can flip it.

The Democrats also say they can flip it, but it is going to be a very difficult.

But I think that, you know, if you're politically minded, you're thinking, who can win in the general.

Some people thought that Andy Barr would be the best pick.

>> Some Democrats have selected progressive Charles Booker.

He has run for the Senate twice before.

But he says third time's the charm.

Can can Booker overcome Kentucky's Republican tendencies in these federal elections?

>> I think it's going to be an uphill battle regardless.

He's got strong support in places like Louisville and Lexington, but he's going to have to drum up some more support across the state.

He's also going to have to look for those Democrats that are more towards the center, the independent voters, Republicans that don't see themselves aligned with the values that Barr is representing in this election.

So I think that will be his focus the next several months is how do you expand your base to make this a seat that he can win for a Democrat?

>> And look, there are some issues that President Trump is currently championing that have not been universally reported, you know, liked by people who voted for him in 2020 for the Iraq war.

Gas prices going up, inflation still not under control, cuts to Medicaid, things like that might resonate with some voters who typically do vote Republican.

So I think Booker we saw him in the primary even talking more about issues like that a little less so about, you know, culture war issues that Democrats don't seem to be winning on in Kentucky and focusing really on things like he's called for Medicare, Medicare for all, talking about raising minimum wage, federal worker protections, anti AI, things like that.

I think that's where he sees his path to victory.

It's just going to be a very difficult path.

>> Booker won the Democratic nomination, as we said, by winning Lexington and Louisville and some of the heavily populated areas, Amy McGrath did better in those rural areas.

John.

So let's talk about the math a little bit.

Wouldn't Booker need to have the Democrats unite some independent and Republican voters also to to go his way in order to win?

>> That's exactly what Charles Booker would need.

He has a numbers problem.

So there's 1.6 million registered Republican voters in Kentucky.

There's 1.3 million registered Democrats, and there's about 300,000 independent and third party voters, give or take.

So there's a lot more Republicans.

There's just that simple.

He'd have to get all of the Democrats to come out, and he'd have to get all the independents and carve out at least a few of the Republicans to overcome the numbers.

And that's a tall order.

>> All right.

We'll be watching the U.S.

Senate race unfold here in Kentucky with without Mitch McConnell on the ballot for the first time since 1984.

Well, Kentucky was under a glaring spotlight for another race in the fourth Congressional District.

Ed Ryan defeated Congressman Thomas Massie.

It was the most expensive House race ever.

The speeches election night reflected the tension in the race.

>> But for the same reason I entered as a Navy Seal officer in 1983, because I had the audacity to think I could make a difference, and I did.

I will serve this district, my party and my nation with that same audacity to make a difference for them, their families, our district, our party, and our nation.

God bless America.

Thank you all.

>> Look, we ran, we ran a race that you can be proud of.

You have to apologize to nobody tomorrow for anything you did.

And we kept smiling the whole time.

We weren't really running against Ed Goren.

We weren't running against Donald Trump.

[APPLAUSE] We were running for what we believe in.

>> Mason.

More than $30 million was spent in this race.

President Trump stayed fully engaged.

Even the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, campaigned in Kentucky.

This was one to watch, and many did all around the country.

>> Going into this, Thomas Massie called it a referendum on if you could break the ranks of the Republicans and vote differently on certain issues, which Thomas Massie has done several times.

And it looks like, at least in Kentucky in this primary, it didn't play out that way.

President Trump has won Kentucky many times in a row.

He still has a lot of influence power here.

I think that's what we saw play out, especially.

I think what's really interesting is that Ryan won this race basically on the platform of I support the president.

I will do what the president asks.

And beyond that, we don't know a whole lot about the issues that he would like to champion if he makes it to Washington.

>> Right.

I talked to some voters Tuesday morning, and some of them told me that while they didn't particularly know a lot about Paul Ryan, even even though they got a lot of ads in their mailbox, they still felt like Massie might have burned too many bridges in Washington.

That was something that really hit on that.

Massie couldn't be effective anymore because he had burned too many bridges.

Of course, Massie says, I might have burned some bridges, but I have accomplished a few things.

Last year, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, he also finally got his prime act into the farm bill.

So he's had a few things, but I think voters were swayed by the argument that President Trump doesn't like you.

You're on the outs in the Republican Party, and that could hurt you in your what you're able to accomplish in Washington.

>> And clearly did, John.

>> It did.

What I'm curious to see, though, is.

So he caught the car, he won.

Congratulations to him.

And assuming he beats Democrat Melissa Strange in the fall election.

And let's be honest, it's a Republican district.

He probably will.

Maybe he won't, but he probably will.

He's going to be a congressman for the next two years.

So what is he going to do?

What bills is he going to file?

What committees does he want to sit on?

What policies will he pursue?

We don't know.

He wouldn't really talk to reporters.

He wouldn't debate Thomas Massie.

He doesn't really have a policy platform beyond, as Mason said, I'll do what the president tells me to do.

We're going to pay this guy $174,000 a year.

As a congressman, I'm curious to see how he occupies his time in the Capitol for the next two years.

>> Would one anticipate that there will be some positions that will roll out in the fall campaign?

Or to John's point, the district seems to overwhelmingly go Republican, and he would not be forced into that situation.

>> I don't know that he's necessarily forced to do that.

I think he can coast along essentially with with the status quo.

The president supports me, and I feel that I'm going to win this race.

That's probably how this will likely play out, unless there is enough rumblings among Republicans to push him to say, we would like to see some of the things that you want to do if elected.

>> Mason, you were in Massie's headquarters that night when he made his speech.

At some point along the way.

Before that night, he had said that if he lost, he would head back to the farm.

That did not seem to be his plan as he made that speech that night, which was somewhat defiant after his loss.

>> You know, the the crowd there was energetic.

It was maybe the most energetic concession speech I've ever seen or been to.

Lots of chance for a potential presidential run.

My crystal ball says that we have not seen the end of Thomas Massie.

What form he comes back in?

Not sure yet.

>> I mean, somebody did yell out president or whatever, and he just kind of laughed, right?

I mean.

>> Pretty much he smiled and said, oh, oh.

>> Worth noting.

We have a sore loser law, so he's definitely not running as an independent.

I've got a lot of people saying, oh, he'll run as an independent.

Yeah, it's not an option.

>> No, not this time.

I mean, you know, who knows if he if he did try for a comeback later, he could potentially go that route.

We'll see.

All right.

The Kentucky's only open house race.

It was in the sixth district centered around the growing cities of Lexington, Richmond and Georgetown, but also including rural areas.

Doctor Ralph Alvarado won the Republican nomination, and Zach Dimbo was the choice among Democrats.

>> You've got to fight really hard to make sure that we continue to support the values that we believe in here in Kentucky.

Republican values of freedom, of faith and family to make sure we have someone who can carry those ideas forward and continue to do things, to keep that that freedom and that passion and that liberty advancing every generation so that America can stay that city on a hill someday as well.

>> I was never especially Partizan, right?

I come from a common sense area of solving problems.

When I was in the Navy, when I was a federal prosecutor, it wasn't Republican or Democratic ideas.

It was, how do we fix this problem?

That's the same approach I plan to take in this election.

>> John.

Again, Alvarado had President Trump's endorsement and easily outdistanced state Representative Ryan Dodson, who had campaigned very hard, and some other candidates.

What does he bring to the fall race?

>> Ralph Alvarado has a lot of credentials that help him.

He spent eight years representing Clark County in the state Senate, and he was Governor Matt Bevin, his running mate in 2019 as lieutenant governor, Bevin lost.

But that wasn't Ralph Alvarado's fault.

So he's got a lot of political, political connections and experience and friendships in Frankfort.

People in Central Kentucky know who he is.

He's got a little bit of baggage, too.

I've written in the Lexington Herald Leader about his time in the legislature pushing the agenda of the nursing home industry at the same time that he was the medical director for some low rated nursing homes that had some serious problems in Central Kentucky.

The Democrats, if they want to, could probably make some interesting TV commercials out of that.

We'll see how that goes.

>> But he also headed up the public health in Tennessee for a time and then returned to Kentucky to to make this race.

He says he's an expert on health care and that he wants to pursue some changes there.

>> He's a medical doctor.

He knows more about medicine than most of us.

I'm sure.

>> Democrats picked Zack Dembo from a crowded field of candidates, and you could see his momentum coming with with his money and endorsements.

He ended up winning all but one county.

Former state Representative Sherilyn Stevenson was next in the race.

Dembo says he's convinced he can flip the sixth district.

>> Dembo is a really interesting candidate.

I think he checks a lot of boxes for the Democratic Party.

Young smart guy, former Navy JAG officer, worked for a little while as an aide to Governor Andy Beshear during the pandemic, most recently was an assistant U.S.

attorney in Lexington.

Quit the Justice Department out of disgust, he says, because Donald Trump was turning it into his personal law firm, moderate Democrat, but does not shy away from calling out Donald Trump's more unpopular policies.

And, as you say, got a lot of money, got a lot of backing from big Democrats like former Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, former Congressman Ben Chandler.

This is probably the biggest chance the Democrats have in a while to to flip that seat.

>> Mason, does this race get some national attention in the fall?

It is arguably Kentucky's only purple district that is has the potential to go either way.

>> I think we see a lot of money from across the nation get put into this race.

Not as much as the Massie race, obviously.

But, you know, this could be a good gamble.

You know, for this district, the money is only going to go essentially into one media market.

So your dollars are going to get, you know, much more efficient use of the dollars.

And as Democrats look to have a successful year this year across the nation, I think they see this potentially as an investment that's going to pay off for them.

But we'll see.

It's going to be an uphill battle as well.

>> In the Fifth Congressional District, Republican Hal Rogers has won 22 times since his first election in 1980.

He easily carried the GOP primary in that district, as it stretches from through Appalachia, from Ashland to Somerset.

And John Rogers easily wins renomination.

He put out a statement thanking supporters.

Democrat Ned Dorff is known in much of that district, and he hopes to make a race of it.

>> Yeah.

Ned Pillersdorf is is very well known in Eastern Kentucky.

He is a lawyer in Prestonsburg.

He's practiced law there for nearly 45 years, usually represents poor people who need help and can't get it anywhere else.

Involved in a lot of social justice activities.

His wife is Janet Stumbo, a former Kentucky Supreme Court justice.

Ned campaign is largely based on Donald Trump hurting Appalachia, cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, food stamps, black lung benefits and Pillersdorf says Hal Rogers should be ashamed of himself that that Hal Rogers should be standing up to Donald Trump and defending Eastern Kentucky.

And he says Hal Rogers isn't.

And so Ned Petersdorf wants to replace him and do the job that Hal Rogers should be doing.

>> Acknowledging that it will be a steep climb with Rogers.

>> Yeah.

Again, Hal Rogers first went to Congress the same year that Ronald Reagan was elected president.

So, you know, it's tough to unseat somebody like that.

>> He's the dean of the House, the longest serving member of the House in Washington.

All right.

Some state legislative races were interesting.

Sylvia.

State Representative Kim Banta in Northern Kentucky lost by a razor thin margin to a Cole Cusick.

>> Yeah.

13 votes.

And she has.

She said she does not she's not going to ask for a Recanvass not going to ask for a recount.

And Cole Cusick, he really ran as the liberty candidate, the freedom kind of candidate.

And he also really hit her for her vote against an anti-trans bill that bans gender affirming care, health care for transgender youth really hit her hard on that no vote that she made.

And he won, but very razor thin margins.

There are a lot of PACs that were supporting Banta.

Apparently, it was not enough money to help her hold on to that seat.

>> In Louisville, Democrat Daniel Grossberg lost his seat in the legislature, running a distant third after he had faced a sexual harassment allegations that he denied.

John.

>> My colleagues at the Herald-Leader for the last two years have written a number of stories about Representative Grossberg and women that have come forward with stories about his behavior toward them that made them feel very uncomfortable.

He settled with the Legislative Ethics Commission and paid a $2,000 fine earlier this year about that.

Those incidents and the voters of his Louisville district have spoken.

He came in third in the race and will not be in the legislature anymore after this year.

>> Also in the Louisville area, Beverly Chester Brown lost her seat in the legislature.

>> Mason five votes didn't even closer race there.

And in the western part of Louisville, she marks the third of the incumbents that did lose a primary this year.

Very interesting stuff happening there.

>> Lexington will have two women facing off for mayor for the first time ever.

Incumbent Linda Gorton got 46% of the vote in a crowded field.

Rockhill Carter also advances with about 29% of the vote.

John Gorton and Carter indicate they'll campaign hard in the months ahead, and there are some obvious issues out there.

>> One of the biggest issues in Lexington is lack of affordable housing, where 22,000 homes, short of where we need to be, home prices and rent are soaring in Lexington.

But the biggest issue that's been bedeviling poor Mayor Gorton is the winter storms and her poor reaction to it.

Two years ago, it took weeks for the schools to reopen because the streets weren't shoveled in time.

She promised to do better.

This year it happened again and people in Lexington lost their minds.

And so she faced a lot more opposition for her reelection than she anticipated.

We'll see if she hangs on to her job in the general election.

>> Mason.

Louisville's mayor's race is set.

Incumbent Craig Greenberg and Shameka Parrish.

Right.

This is a sort of a rematch, but this time around, it's not the crowded field that was there in 2022, because it's one on one and it's nonpartisan.

>> Nonpartisan has been a real big, interesting one over in Jefferson County.

And, you know, I think out of the several people that were in the race for mayor, obviously, Mayor Greenberg, the incumbent, and Shameka Parrish Wright quickly rose to the top as likely people to end up going to the general election.

I think that Mayor Greenberg, it's his race to lose.

Essentially, he's the incumbent.

Republicans like him as well.

You know, we'll see if Shameka Parrish Wright can drum up enough support to flip that into what she would like to see for the city.

>> John Mayfield will have a new mayor, Kathy O'hannon, defeated in the primary.

She led the city through that awful tornado disaster in 2021.

Got a lot of attention for that.

Derrick Parrott and Tim Choate moved forward.

>> This surprised a lot of us.

Mayor Onan became the public face of Mayfield and of the tornado recovery, traveling the state, raising support for her community.

But apparently within Mayfield, there was some concern that the rebuilding wasn't happening as smoothly or as quickly as it needed to be.

Both of the candidates who are going to proceed to the general election serve in local capacity, local government in different capacities.

>> 18 county judge executives lost their primaries.

They were all over the state, including one of the state's fastest growing counties of Madison, which will have their first woman as judge.

Executive Republicans nominated Donna Agee over the long time incumbent Reagan Taylor, and there is no Democratic candidate.

Growth was an issue there.

There were all kinds of issues across the state.

>> Yeah, it's interesting when you see so much things turning over.

Obviously, your judge executive plays such an important role in in what happens in your county.

I also know that there are a couple counties where one of the big issues on the ballot, or the big issues that voters were taking to the ballot box was data centers.

I saw some interesting flips happening, some interesting people winning in open seats for judge executive.

And their big issue was they don't want to see data centers in their community.

>> Mason, the National Transportation Safety Board had hearings this week about that UPS plane crash in November in Louisville.

The goal was to get to the cause, not to assign blame.

>> That's right.

The two days really kind of focused in on the part of the plane where this failure happened, explained, you know, how this could have happened, and you know how this potentially led to the tragedy that we had last year.

No blame assigned.

We're still going to wait for the final NTSB report.

That will come out likely sometime next year.

We'll learn even more about what the federal government has learned about this.

>> Sylvia, some invasive bass found in Lake Linville in Rockcastle County.

They're usually in southern Alabama.

That's raised some concerns.

>> It always raises concerns when you have a potential invasive species.

How far has it gotten?

Is it really isolated to this one area?

They don't know the extent yet.

I think they found two bass in a kind of routine check of the Lake Alabama bass hybrids near Mount Vernon.

And, you know, we'll just have to wait and see.

They're going to keep surveying, see if this is a more broad issue.

But it's always a concern when you have a new invasive.

>> Lynn Lewellyn is being remembered in Kentucky and beyond for his work in state government and his passion for creating affordable housing.

He was the husband of former lieutenant governor and former state auditor, Crit Lewellyn.

Lynn Lewellyn worked in Kentucky's largest cities and in Appalachia during Governor Paul Patton's administration.

Lewellyn led the Renaissance Kentucky program that improved nearly 100 Kentucky downtowns.

Lynn Lewellyn was 88.

And on this Memorial Day weekend, we honor our military personnel who died in the line of duty.

Many communities will be holding observances that's common on Kentucky.

Thank you for joining us.

Have a good week ahead.