Now to check in with our good friend Rowland Barden, who's a managing editor of Kentucky Public Radio, about all things governor's race.

Because we are just days apart.

It friend seems like it got here so quickly and yet we're so ready for it.

Yeah.

Good to see you, Renee.

Good to see you.

So the candidates at the top of the ticket and the rest of the ticket, in some cases, they're all traveling on these big bus tours, crisscrossing the state.

This is pretty conventional, pretty typical for this to happen this time of the year.

It is.

It's conventional, but it's also it's incredibly important in these races in these years when only the governor and these other statewide offices are on the ballot for the most part of this.

A couple special elections around the state.

But turnout is always a little bit lower during these other years.

There's you know, the candidates don't benefit from, you know, national coverage of, you know, the presidential race or congressional races that are on the ballot, bringing people out to the polls, really just relying on people who are pretty focused on statewide elections.

So they're both of the campaigns and most of the tickets are traveling around the state to try and energize the voters that they can interact with and hit as many spots as they can right now.

Well, your new Enterprise State House reporter who was no stranger to the Kentucky political beat, Joe Zanka, had a great in-depth, comprehensive story following the money in the Kentucky governor's race.

Who's bankrolling it, how much to spending it, where it's going and how much could be spent?

And we know that this is history making in terms of money in the Kentucky governor's race.

And this is the most expensive part that we're in right now these last few days.

So tell us about what he found.

Yeah, we already knew that this was a big, expensive race, that it's the most expensive race in Kentucky history.

But this is the last this is the last report that we get before the election next Tuesday that reporters all these numbers are, as of last week, a lot more spending to come in those final two in these final two weeks.

And we will get to see what it was all spent on a little bit later after the election.

Main takeaway is you're still way in the lead with fundraising, but Daniel Cameron has been able to stay competitive and catch up with all that support from from outside political groups.

We've seen the commercials and and Beshear is also getting a lot of support from outside political groups as well.

Those are mostly funded by the Democratic Governors Association and the Republican Governors Association.

They also get a little extra help from some big time, you know, deep pocketed philanthropists or people who are involved in politics.

Jeff Yass, who's somebody who's contributed a lot to Rand Paul's campaigns, a big supporter of of Daniel Craig.

There's a PAC supporting Daniel Cameron's efforts in this year's election.

And on Beshear side, a lot of the National Union teacher union efforts have been throwing their support behind behind his campaign as well.

I think another really interesting finding in this is that he and our data reporter Justin Hicks broke down exactly where the contributions are coming from in kentucky and I think that I was surprised at least to see that that Beshear has a pretty deep support or at least fundraising support across the state.

There's large swaths, even in rural Kentucky, that are supporting Beshear.

Some of it looks kind of similar to the 2019 map.

My eyes kind of hone in on that.

There's a strip of counties in northeastern Kentucky, like Eliot County, Rowland County, which are old Democratic strongholds.

And though politically they have not been working so well for Democrats, there's still a fundraising element to it that is at least working for Beshear right now.

And we will kind of see if that if that that he's able to convert that into actual votes on Election Day.

Well, we know that's where his senior advisor is from Eliot County, former state Representative Rocky Adkins, who was majority leader at one time.

He's from L.A. County.

So maybe that explains some of that.

Let's talk about the number two on the ticket.

The lieutenant governor candidates made their first their first and only TV appearance jointly together on Monday night in Maine.

Takeaways from that.

Seems like they did what they were supposed to do as the Sarah gets to the top of the ticket.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's really what they are.

They're surrogates for their and for their main and for the first time and ticket for the main candidates on the ballot.

Yeah, they're talking about education talking about conservative policies.

Robby Mills, John Coleman was criticizing him for being a legislator that was involved in passing the so-called sewer bill, the pension adjustment to pension benefits that passed on in the legislature.

What was that in 2018?

Right.

But and subsequently struck down by the Supreme Court.

So, yeah, it was an interesting it was an interesting debate to watch.

But, you know, then the lieutenant governor's made powers really to step in in case the governor's incapacitated.

You know, lately it's really kind of up to the governor to what extent they want to empower the lieutenant governor to do anything.

And it'd be interesting to see how how either of these candidates would play in this next administration.

All right.

And they wouldn't ask whether or not they really want to be governor.

Of course, that would seem a little egotistical to get out front, I guess, at this particular moment.

Finally, Attorney General, so we know that those two candidates, the Democratic challenger, who is a state representative, 27 year veteran of the Air Force, he's a colonel.

Pam Stephenson is up with an ad.

But also we know that the Republican challenger, Russell Coleman, former U.S. attorney, also has an ad about he is how he is going to stop Biden.

And that resonates with folks.

Russell Coleman's attempt to really lean into national issues.

This is something that Republicans, you know, up and down the ballot have really been doing.

And it's you know, that's really something to do in Kentucky, where national figures like President Joe Biden are wide and are very unpopular here in the state.

And so trying to connect their opponents to those kinds of figures has typically worked pretty well for Republicans.

I found this kind of notable over the years watching, you know, Russell Coleman since he used to be a staffer for or Mitch McConnell.

But then when he was working in Kentucky, in the state legislature as an advocate for the Smart on Crime Coalition, a coalition, a bipartisan coalition of organs, and Democrats are working on criminal justice reform issues.

This seems totally different from that particular era in time.

And I think a lot of that comes during this campaign season.

This is the this is kind of how we talk about the issues around elections these days.

Yeah, public safety is one of the main themes along with education.

Right.

And that's certainly what Daniel Cameron has been talking about as the top of the ticket.

Gubernatorial candidate.

Well, thank you, Rylan, so much to break down.

We'll do it again next week.

Take good care.

Thanks, Renee.

And be sure to tune in to Ket on election night, November the seventh, Tuesday for returns and a comprehensive analysis from the most experienced team of political pundits and observers.

Our live coverage and informed analysis begins at 7 p.m. Eastern 6 p.m. Central right here on KCET.