a decade.

[MUSIC] A U.S.

Senate seat is open in Kentucky, with two Republicans going head to head in the GOP primary.

>> My opponents like to talk about the one big, beautiful bill.

I wrote it and helped to pass it.

>> I'm not beholden to anyone in Washington.

I'm beholden to the people here of this Commonwealth.

>> But only one received a coveted endorsement.

>> I'm a battle tested winner in general elections, and we can't afford to lose this seat in the United States Senate.

>> And so this race is very much about the future.

And it would be an honor to serve in the United States Senate.

>> Tonight's winner will look to keep the Kentucky Senate seat Reed.

While these Democratic candidates say they are the best option for flipping the seat blue.

>> I've made it very clear that I'm here for the people.

This is a testament to the community.

[MUSIC] >> What we need is someone who's going to be a voice for everyday Kentuckians.

[MUSIC] >> It's time to try something different in Democratic Party.

It's time to try something different for the country.

>> Plus, a political newcomer with the backing of President Trump, challenges a seven term incumbent in Kentucky's fourth congressional district.

>> He's afraid to take a position because he knows that he doesn't have positions.

>> He's had 15 years to make his case to these people get this quote right.

15 years.

What's he got to say now?

>> KET 2026 primary election coverage begins now.

>> And we thank you so much for joining us.

I'm Renee Shaw.

For the next three hours, KET will bring you the results and comprehensive analysis of Primary Election 2026.

And we have our A team with us here in the studio to break it all down.

I'm joined by Trey Grayson, former Kentucky Secretary of state and attorney with FBT Gibbons.

Al cross, veteran, veteran political journalist and professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Kentucky.

Bob Babich, former Kentucky secretary of state and Kentucky state auditor and founder of Babbage Cofounder, a government relations firm.

Sherman Brown Democratic strategist and partner at McCarthy Strategic Solutions and Amy Wickliffe Republican strategist and partner at McCarthy Strategic Solutions.

All eyes are on Kentucky tonight, and we have teams on the ground at six high profile races.

The U.S.

Senate races, both the Republican and Democratic primaries, as well as the most expensive race in the history of U.S.

House primaries in Kentucky's fourth Congressional District.

And we'll check in with our crews in the field at these various candidate watch parties throughout the night, including Kentucky's sixth Congressional District.

So, first of all, to our panel, thank you all for being here.

It's going to be an exciting three hours, we think, and not just the races, as we mentioned, but also the county races that we're going to talk a lot about tonight.

What do we know right now?

Trey Grayson.

>> Well, the results that are trickling in, I'll start with the fourth Congressional District, which is the marquee event that you talked about, that why the nation's eyes are on Kentucky.

A lot of the early tidbits that we're starting to get seem to be showing that Gallrein is doing pretty well.

And, you know, it is it is precincts here and there and absentee ballots and early voting here or there.

But it does look like President Trump's investment and recruitment efforts, financial efforts and coming to the district, coming to Kentucky appear to be paying off, at least in the early results.

>> Yeah.

Not surprising across.

>> Well, President Trump made it plain, I think, that of all the races he's involved in this year, this is the one he cared about the most.

Look at all the money involved.

Look at the Secretary of Defense, for God's sakes.

In the middle of a war coming to the district the day before the election.

And he made a pretty good talk for Gallrein to Pete Hegseth did so.

Thomas Massie has been adverse to Donald Trump on a number of things.

And after he went against him on the latest plans for Iran or the previous attack on Iran, Trump said he was going to get him.

But Trump has said that before.

What really guaranteed it was the Epstein files law that goes to Trump's core, and he is out to get Massie, and it looks like he's probably got him.

>> Yeah.

So, Amy, this isn't the first time that maybe the eyes have been on Thomas Massie, but this time it might be the time that it works to remove him from office.

>> This might be it.

And I think tonight, too, you know, we're going to get an answer to a question that many of us have had for the last several months, and that is, what is the value of a Trump endorsement?

And what does that mean?

Here in Kentucky, we've watched Trump endorsements be positive and not work in certain states.

And so many of us have been questioning, what does that do in Kentucky?

And is it possible to have a Trump endorsement, not work in the fourth Congressional District, but then work in the U.S.

Senate race Wright in the Sixth congressional?

Could you have a split kind of Trump endorsement influence?

And so we're going to see that answer tonight.

>> Yeah, pretty strong influence, Bob Babich that Trump has, particularly on Kentuckians at this particular juncture, even though his popularity seems to be on the decline in some polls.

>> Definitely in polls.

He's not faring well.

But we have controversies in house prices and other things that feed that right now.

Still, a lot of people listen to his advice.

They appear to be listening to it tonight.

It's not anywhere near over.

But the way Trump weighed into this race and the the strength of his push has affected a lot of people and a lot of votes without a great knowledge of Gallrein, except that he was the choice.

He was the one put in the spot.

The place to beat Massie.

Massie has been a fascinating person in Congress and in many other ways.

All of us have worked with him, know him.

So it's a contest not just of local interest folks like us, but all of us today have heard from people around the country, national media to Trey, old friends calling, saying, what's going on for $32 million a lot.

>> And Sherman Brown even some Democrats have heralded and applauded Congressman Massie's moxie when it comes to standing up to the president on the one big, beautiful bill, of course, Iran and the Jeffrey Epstein files.

So tell us your perspective on this race.

>> As I'm watching it, I think kind of what al said, you know, that he that he has clearly gone against the president on these two issues.

But if you back up, the president ran on these issues and talked about the Epstein files and releasing them, and he talked about no more wars.

So he's really with the president back in 22, before and before he was against him.

But I think that is one of those things.

He's voted with him over 90% of the time as a Democrat.

I'm watching it, and I worked in the fourth Congressional District was my first race ever, 2002, with Ken Lucas.

The district has changed a lot, but, you know, it was a Democrat representing at that time.

But, you know, to me, it is just interesting to watch of kind of where it is and where that loyalty to to Trump and back to what Amy said.

>> And I think it's more than loyalty to Trump.

There are a lot of people in that district.

And Trey, you know him, who don't like Donald Trump or Thomas Massie.

And they've been wanting a different congressman for some time.

And I think some of them see this as an opportunity to say, okay, we'll take Trump and Gallrein for two years, and we'll have a more effective congressman, somebody who does the more traditional jobs of a congressman.

>> Yeah.

One of the things that happened in this race is and it didn't happen right, right at the start, but Gallrein was able to consolidate the folks who were the okay.

President Trump was for this guy and for this guy.

There's also a group that I alluded to more specifically called the Business community.

The folks who wanted a congressman to fight, for example, for funding for the Prince Prince Bridge companion project.

And then there's also a group of Republicans.

There's been a lot of Republican.

We've had primaries, we've had county party fights with Massie and his allies on often the winning end of these fights inside the party.

And a lot of those folks moved over to, to, to Gallrein.

My suspicion is, is that win or lose, this race, there'll be a lot of folks who wake up tomorrow morning think, darn, I should have taken that phone call from that political consultant who said, you know, would you like to run for Congress?

And we can guarantee you money and endorsement and support.

>> You want to name drop?

>> No, and it's not me, to be clear, but but I suspect there'll be a few that are thinking like kicking themselves and also those who are thinking, oh, we only have Gallrein for two years.

They're kicking themselves too.

Because, you know, when you get in Congress, you stay.

>> Well, this wasn't Gallrein first attempt at political office, so he probably learned some lessons from his failed state attempt.

>> State when we were here talking about him two years ago, he had one of the highest profile.

It was an open state Senate seat in Shelby County, Henry, and a couple other counties around the metropolitan Louisville suburbs.

He lost by a couple hundred votes to Aaron Reed.

He was actually backed by Senate leadership.

Senate leadership spent money on his behalf, but Aaron Reed was able to pull that out.

And interestingly, Reed was the maybe the first candidate the white House talked to who fit the profile of a Kentucky politician, former Navy Seal from Shelby County.

He he took a pass Gallrein took it and, you know, seems to be in a good spot.

>> Yeah.

Just a moment ago, you were seeing a shot from the Gallrein election night headquarters.

We'll show you that in just a moment again.

But we also want to talk about turnout a little bit before we move on.

And we've heard Secretary Michael Adams talk about he expected it to be around 20%, maybe north of that, considering that there's a lot of local races that could drive that turnout a little north of 20%.

Amy Wickliffe what do you think about the turnout?

And it's usually a much more abysmal than that 10 to 15% in a primary.

But we could do better this time around.

>> Absolutely.

And I think you mentioned it, all of these local races, there are some very competitive local races.

We were talking before we went on air, and this is the first time we can remember really competitive primaries at the county judge's race level.

At the sheriff's level, mayor's race, there's a lot of those driving those local turnout and those are driven.

Voters are driven on different issues for those types of turnout.

Right.

>> Republican primaries, right?

>> That's correct.

Yeah.

>> That's right.

Democrats aren't really that many challenges.

>> Really amazing about the local races this year is the dearth of Democratic primaries.

Yeah.

There are only like 24 counties with contested countywide Democratic primaries.

>> Yeah.

So but to get back, I think one of the things I'm looking at tonight is specifically turnout in the fourth Congressional District, right?

Northern Kentucky traditionally does not turn out to vote if they're not going to turn out.

And if Northern Kentucky doesn't turn out this cycle, they're probably never going to turn out in droves.

This is their chance, right?

This is their chance to prove it's wrong.

This is where I think what we're looking at is higher turnout numbers are going to favor Gallrein Wright.

I believe that because you're going to have new voters coming to town.

But what also may change that?

And it might just that might not be the automatic thought.

It might be who's turning out to vote.

Right.

So you have older voters are typically going to align.

Women are aligning more with Gallrein where men are aligning more with Mansi your middle age, younger voters are aligning with Cassie.

And so it's not just how many people turn out that's going to signal who's going to win that race, but it's who, what, what type of constituencies are turning out up there.

>> And we talked to Secretary of State Michael Adams yesterday, and here's what he had to say about expected turnout.

>> So to.

>> Predict turnout, we look at basically the votes that have been cast before Election Day.

We look at absentee ballots that have been returned.

We've still got about 30% of those that haven't been brought back by the voters.

It's too soon to mail them.

So I want to encourage people to bring them to the polls, bring them to the clerk's office, and we'll take them.

We look at those and we look at the early voting.

And my prediction is, is holding true that we expect just above 20% of registered voters to vote in this election.

We've already had about 5.5% of voters registered participate before Election Day through early voting, but also some absentees generally.

That tends to be about a quarter of the vote.

And so if you multiply that, we're looking at about a 20 to 22% turnout.

Well, I sadly have to brag and say I'm very pleased to have 20 or 22% turnout because typically in a primary in Kentucky, we have turnout between 10 and 15%.

So to be at 22 versus 11 is great.

It's twice what we usually have.

I do want to point out that what we're seeing in the numbers is it is not the Senate race or even the congressional races that are driving the turnout.

It is local races and the counties that have the highest turnout so far are in the first district, in the fifth district, which don't have competitive races for Congress.

But you have local races that are competitive for county office and local city office.

>> So, Bob Babbage, I want to come to you as a former Kentucky secretary of state.

You know, Adams had mentioned 155,000 had cast early ballots during early voting, 30,000 absentee.

Who is most likely to cast a ballot early during the early voting period?

And particularly when you look at these Republican primaries, and is there any kind of demographic information that we have about that that informs that?

>> I don't recall the demographics so much.

It's people, I believe, who are committed to voting.

They're going to vote.

We've made it easy.

Adams always wanted to make it easy and safe and.

>> Harder to cheat.

>> Right and pray.

And I would certainly say he by the time he finishes his term, he could be the third best Secretary of State ever.

Thank you for laughing.

But when he said it was going to be 20% turnout, the shock value of that is 80% are.

What a what a thing to to deal with.

And today in Kenton County, when it looked like 13% early in the afternoon versus 10% in the whole day last time, and we're cheering 13/10.

Still so many people not participating, not just there, but anywhere.

A 20% turnout statewide in a primary is terrible.

And certainly Wright local elections drive turnout because many more signs, many more door to door people talking about it at church and other places.

But for this time, with all that's going on in the world and the nation, you would think we'd have better participation than this.

>> Yeah.

One of the things that makes it tough to talk about turnout in the primary is the fact that so many voters in Kentucky cannot vote in a primary.

So if you're in Jefferson County, Fayette County, you can vote because you've got nonpartisan city races that have primaries.

Boone County, where I live, there was nothing to vote on.

If you were an independent or a. The new judicial primaries, no city races, not enough people filed.

I was a poll worker Saturday I had to turn people away.

But Bob's right just to put some stats on it.

So in the Republican primary alone in 2022.

So because of that, the higher the turnout inside the party is actually higher than when we say 20, it'll be higher than 20 inside the Republican Party, the Democratic Party.

But 2022, which is the corresponding election, was 25% in the Republican primary turnout 2023, the governor's primary competitive race.

Right.

We were here talking about it only 19% in the Republican primary last year.

Last election, 2024, 16%.

People do come out in these county races.

What's interesting this year is we've had two open seat U.S.

Senate races.

And then in the fourth district, we've had the supercharged race.

So that will likely be higher turnout.

But as Bob points out, it's still not very many people.

>> Sherman Brown, I want to go to you because you heard al talk about that.

The Democrats didn't really show up so much on the ballot in these county races.

What explains that?

Why aren't Democrats running?

>> I don't know if I have a I mean, clearly, we've we've seen a shift here.

I mean, in the last, you know, ten years, 2012 actually going going back.

But looking at the number of races where Democrats, you know, as far as redistricting and just Republicans taking over.

I don't mean that gerrymandering here.

I think that the numbers.

Just to be clear, because I'm sure we'll talk about gerrymandering nationally in that conversation.

But here the the makeup and kind of where things are county judges, the races have taken, you know, Republicans have taken over and it's been an ongoing, you know, slow kind of kind of progress over the last 15, 20 years.

So I think.

>> Republicans got the majority of county judge executives during the term of Matt Bevin, because he appointed some to fill vacancies.

And then in 2018, for the first time, they won most of them by election.

And that is just a reflection of how the Republican Party has been remade along largely cultural lines that fit very well with this state.

>> Yeah.

Before we talk about the two big mayoral races, Louisville and Lexington, we want to bring viewers up to date on what The New York Times is currently reporting, and they have called the race in the U.S.

Senate GOP primary for Andy Barr.

So AP has not called that yet.

And we go by Associated Press.

But it looks like and if you look at the numbers, that's where this is headed.

Yeah, pretty decisively at that.

>> Absolutely.

And I would say I had the chance to spend part of the weekend with the Barr campaign, just to see how the crowds were energized and see kind of the closing message, right?

You've got to every candidate has a closing pitch.

And I will say that the crowds were phenomenal for Barr.

They're energized.

They were ready to go.

I'm really looking for numbers down in south central part of Kentucky.

Warren County, huge turnout.

Wright Boyle County as well.

I mean, they're just you could tell the energy was there and everything was hitting right.

Andy Barr had a tremendous, very positive message to close with.

And I think we're going to see that pan out for him tonight.

>> It's interesting because Rand Paul, who hails from Warren County, of course, was on Team Thomas Massie.

That's right.

So that didn't really translate very well.

>> That's right.

That didn't cross over.

>> Yeah.

It's not a local politician.

He's a national politician.

>> Well, thank you for that clarification.

Which is probably truth in a nutshell.

Okay.

So let's now pivot and talk about the Louisville mayoral race.

And we're going to kick off that conversation first from this package, from our June Leffler.

>> To understand the new voting landscape in Louisville, you have to look back two years to a heated debate in the state House.

Jefferson County Republicans representing the outskirts of Louisville pushed for these local, nonpartisan elections.

>> And the way that the mayor's office is mayor's races normally went was if you won the Democratic primary, that was the end of the day.

>> The mayoral general election has not been competitive in a county where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1.

And there hasn't been a Republican mayor since 1969 to secure the Democratic primary.

The state lawmaker says candidates courted the city's urban core, a Democratic stronghold rather than the slightly more Republican suburbs.

>> And so I wanted them to have to come out here to get votes, because if you have to hunt a vote somewhere, you care more about their libraries and about their roads.

You care more about the crime in that area.

>> Democrats in Frankfort hated the change, and this nonpartisan community organizer says it's caused some suspicion.

>> There have been these theories that this change in the law was an attempt to allow for more conservative candidates to have a better chance of winning elections here in Louisville.

>> Republicans say that's not the case.

>> I assume that the mayor of Louisville is always a Democrat.

That's fine.

I want it to be a Democrat that has to hunt votes all over the county.

>> For the first time, two Republicans could wind up on the general ballot, but even they say that's unlikely.

The incumbent, who has raised the most money is current Democratic Mayor Craig Greenburg.

>> He's more than likely going to be one of the two names, you know, in.

Of course, we as Republicans would hope that the second name will be a registered Republican, one of the four that are currently running.

>> The Democratic Party has propped up Greenburg and other Democrats running for Metro Council.

>> Where there are lots of Democrats and perhaps 1 or 2 Republicans.

You know, we we made some endorsements in those races because we just want to make sure that we don't run into a situation where there's two Democrats or two Republicans, ten Democrats and two Republicans go through.

That is the absolute worst case scenario.

>> The Republican Party has, as always, not made endorsements.

>> We don't pick the winner.

We don't pick the favorite.

We want the voters to do that.

>> As far as the Republican side of things, I haven't seen them really push any particular candidates.

As far as getting two Republicans into that final, that final two, that runoff, I mean, slim to none chances that actually happens.

>> But two Democrats at the end is a real possibility.

And what say would the Republican Party have in that case?

>> Come back and talk to me, because that's going to be something that we're going to have to consider as an executive committee and say, okay, is this one we completely sit out on, or how do we want to engage?

We'll figure that one out when in fact we have that to figure out.

If we have that to figure out.

>> This community organizer says she's not harping on party affiliation.

>> To us.

We are more focused on who the candidate is.

Is the candidate.

Somebody who has shared lived experience is a candidate, somebody who has a very clear vision about what they want to do in our community.

Are they someone who is going to fight for us and really represent us?

And more importantly, are they going to invite us into being able to govern our communities with them?

>> She's reaching out to Black and unlikely voters.

Another voting bloc, independents who make up 6% of Jefferson County voters, can now vote in the mayoral primary for KET.

I'm June Leffler.

>> Thank you so much.

June Sherman Brown.

I want to go to you.

You live in Louisville, Jefferson County.

What do you make of the mayor's race there?

>> I think in the mayor's race, what I'm watching, obviously I agree.

I think Logan Gati chair.

What he said.

I think we're looking at probably two Democrats two two folks coming out of that Craig Greenberg.

I don't think that it's any shock will be, you know, get the most votes.

>> That's not a high risk prediction.

>> That is not that is not a high risk prediction.

>> Sherman started off bold.

>> But I will say I will.

>> Say out of the.

>> Gate that I think that the second will be Shamika Parrish-Wright.

I think that is that is the other the person who I see.

>> So tell us about her background and who she is.

>> So I've known Shamika for quite a while.

She sits on council.

She is an activist.

She has been involved with with numerous non-profits, lots of work just in the community and a lot of not just in the West End, which is where I think she she is living and is from, but statewide, she actually has been involved on the opioid kind of response, the opioid abatement fund she was there for, for lots of meetings there.

So I think she's somebody that I see that will come through on this.

And I think that's where you'll that's that's going to be the general election.

>> I'm looking for her, too.

She's been very active in the community.

A woman of great courage, conviction, had some tough breaks early on, overcame those and might well make this this runoff.

Of course, Greenburg is immensely popular.

>> Going to be tough to beat.

>> Right is one of the best occasions I've been to in a long time was Friday.

Greenburg had it for all the legislative delegation and others.

The praise back and forth, the collaboration, the cooperation, regardless of party.

Praising the mayor by Republicans praising the Republican leadership and others by the mayor.

Watch the video.

If you want a really positive look at Kentucky and how things have come together to fund them for $1 billion of great priorities that benefit everybody, whether you live in Jefferson or not.

I came away supercharged with the conviction, the commitment, and the connection of all the people at that event.

>> Yeah, $1 billion then and $1 billion back at the previous General Assembly right before.

Yeah.

>> So maybe $1 billion will buy you a unity.

Yeah.

>> Well.

>> It might a little bit at that.

>> But and people can go back and look on Kentucky edition because we covered that story the other day.

>> Even Nima saying that Chester Burton should have been the happiest there because she had bugged him more than anybody else.

I mean, it was just really good friendship, exuding throughout that enthusiastic audience and the people on stage.

>> Yeah.

Al, were you going to say something?

>> I'm just wondering how the people in Louisville are feeling about the 75000 independents who can now vote in this primary.

You know, if we're not going to open primaries to independents, the last time that was tried was 30 years ago when Bob gable was still a Republican chairman.

Then we ought to, I think, do measures like this.

Almost every other county has nonpartisan elections.

>> At the city level.

>> At the city level, they're like 5 or 6 cities that elect Partizan mayors.

But I think overall it's a healthy development.

I just wonder what people over there think about it.

>> When gable came out for that, I jumped on that too.

So it's great.

Let's have them participate if we want them in the fall, let's get them in the primary.

I can remember where I was on I 64 when he called me and said, I'm getting my I'm getting kicked, shall we say, universally kicked for this idea.

I said, I have two, nobody likes this but us.

I still think we were 30 years ahead.

And there is more talk about how to involve independents more.

I mean, 11%.

We're leaving a lot of people out and that's only going to grow.

It grows consistently, often more than Republican.

>> Outpaces the Republican and Democratic registration.

>> In Lexington for, you know, 40 plus years since merger happened here.

Partizanship isn't a part of city government.

Linda Gordon, I think, is a registered Republican who's not a partizan.

You know, because the metro government form in Louisville started with Partizanship.

It probably it might take a little bit of time, and it may never be the same as Lexington, but politics at a local level look different here in Lexington, and I suspect they'll look different.

And in Louisville going forward, which was the point of the law, as Jason Nima said in the in the video.

>> And so to that point, Rockhill Carter, who is running against.

Well, there are several running for Lexington mayor, but Rockhill Carter looks to be one who will match up with the incumbent, Linda Gordon.

And we had our Dalton, our Clayton Dalton, excuse me, talk about to some reporters and Lexington with the Lexington leader about this race and how it was shaping up and what it could look like.

>> Lexington's incumbent mayor, Linda Gorton, is running for a third and final term in office, with almost 24 years serving in local government, Gorton is a household name for many in the city, but one of her opponents, realtor Raquel Carter, is mounting what some believe could be a serious challenge.

>> Yeah, so the topic of experience that Raquel Carter has compared to Linda Gorton is fairly different.

Carter comes from sort of the real estate world.

She's the owner and principal broker of God Realty, and that's really been her main bread and butter for the, you know, the majority of her career, as opposed to Linda Gorton, who, you know, was had a long career as a registered nurse, but is primarily known for having been on council for many, many years before becoming vice mayor and then eventually becoming mayor.

So you have a little bit of a a little bit of a difference between someone with a more business minded background compared to more government minded background.

So that's just kind of one element of what distinguishes them.

>> Gorton has a history of being outraged by her opponents, and so far, this race is no different.

>> Raquel Carter has raised about $170,000 so far, but she's also spent the majority of that.

Gordon, on the other hand, has raised about $80,000, but she still has quite a bit left to spend, which has been her M.O.

in prior races.

Mayor Gordon is sort of interesting because of the fact that in every almost every single race that she's had over the past decade, she has been outspent sometimes 5 to 1 and still wins in the last.

In her last election in 2022 against David Kloiber, she got 71% of the vote and won every single precinct but one.

So that is that is quite a hill to climb for Raquel Carter.

Now, one of the reasons why she has done so well in prior elections is because she's very well known.

You have to remember, I mean, she's coming up on 24 years in City Hall.

Okay.

And then the other factor that maybe some people don't realize is that the South Side really does help determine the mayor's race in Lexington.

The reason why is because sometimes voter turnout there is twice what it is on the north side or other sides of town.

That is Mayor Gordon's council district, her former council district area.

And so you see a lot of mayors in Lexington traditionally coming from that, what used to be the fourth council district.

>> Lexington's mayoral race is nonpartisan.

So candidates aren't formally tied to a political party.

But that doesn't mean candidates can't lean into party labels to appeal to voters.

Carter is publicly identifying as a Democrat in her campaign materials, something Gorton's campaign has said is insulting to voters.

In the past, using Partizan labels hasn't been a winning strategy.

>> In 2018, in Mayor Gorton's first race as mayor, her opponent, Ronnie Baston, sent out a mailer that identified himself as a Democrat but called Linda Gorton a sort of Maga Republican, and said she was too close to Andy Barr for Lexington voters to support.

It was much more, you know, aggressive than the mailer that Carter sent out, which didn't mention Gorton at all.

It just said Raquel Carter Democrat Raquel Carter.

And there's a negative response to Baston's ad in 2018, the mailer that went out a couple of weeks ago, where Carter mentioned herself as a or labeled herself as a Democrat, has certainly sparked debate.

And there are plenty of people who are still upset about it.

>> With affordable housing and the current administration's lackluster response to recent winter weather top of mind for many voters.

The primary will give Lexingtonians a chance to make their voices heard.

>> And we thank Clayton Dalton for that report.

Amy Wickliffe want to come to you.

You're following this race really closely.

>> Absolutely.

My hometown.

So I'm very interested to see how Raquel performs tonight.

Right.

I think if she's enough, if she's able to put enough votes on the board, she will be able to really try to convince some of these lexingtonians who are looking for fresh leadership.

People are ready for a change in Lexington, and I know lots of people like to put it on the on the ice storm.

Right.

That really was the final straw.

Right.

I think people are looking for.

We're ready for new leadership.

We might.

>> Have she done.

That hasn't been satisfactory to Lexington voters other than the handling of the Ice and snowstorm.

>> I think it's what maybe hasn't been done right.

I think it's what I think growth in Lexington.

Look, we have housing challenges in Lexington.

And it's no secret that trying to balance our housing needs with our farmland in Kentucky, with some very powerful constituencies out there who don't want to see that growth in certain areas.

But at some point, if we want to continue to grow Lexington and to be an economic driver of the state, we're going to have to have housing for people to to live here.

And so housing has been a really hot topic here in Lexington.

I think it's just we feel kind of stagnant.

And so I think we are looking for a new person to come in, maybe with a business background.

Raquel has Raquel, of course, is a realtor, small business owner, owns her own brokerage.

Her husband is a builder as well, has been involved in a lot of projects.

And so I think there's a good opportunity, at least for voters, to have a choice this election.

>> So I want to come to you because Raquel Carter was sending out mailers and other information that she is a Democrat.

Yes.

That's unusual.

Was it wise?

>> It was unusual.

But I don't think it's that offensive to tell somebody what your party is.

You can look that up.

We have run nonpartisan here.

Urban county government is the merge.

Government is 50 plus years old and has been very successful in making Lexington more cohesive, making services more fair and overall good results.

But when you're in office for eight years, as Gorton has been and running again, and you have a younger generation, we draw a lot of young people.

A lot of young people come to school here.

They want to live here, and when they make that commitment, they've got to have a place making room for them, embracing the business community in a different way.

City Hall is thought to be a bit slow on that, although the government gets good marks and runs well in terms of objective reviews, citizens are anxious.

Traffic is tough, tough, tough, hard to solve.

But that's what everybody talks about.

>> And I'll go back to when we were talking about Mayor Greenburg earlier.

Lexington deserves the same.

We need a mayor who is willing to go to Frankfort and develop those relationships with legislators and members of leadership.

That's how Craig Greenburg has been so successful at delivering for Louisville.

We need somebody who's willing to do that, a fresh face in Frankfort, to be willing to develop those relationships no matter what party they're from.

>> Plus, Greenburg solicits business and encourages business in a great way that Lexington could profit from.

>> Yeah, well.

>> I think Linda Gordon has been a good mayor, but I think she's seen relatively as a caretaker kind of mayor.

You know, following Jim Gray, who was an active mayor.

She's a real consensus builder, and she benefits from that consensus.

But people also want performance.

And when you have two bad winters, you know, it sort of reminds you of Jane Byrne losing in Chicago in 1981.

She lost because she couldn't get the snow moved.

And that may not happen to Linda Gorton, but it's a lesson for all public officials.

You have to perform where the rubber meets the road.

>> Right?

So somebody who has performed Associated Press, AP has called it for Andy Barr.

He will be the Republican nominee for U.S.

Senate.

New York Times had called it some time ago.

Associated press called it at around 7:00 eastern time.

And so we will have a shot right there of the Andy Barr headquarters.

He is at the central Bank center.

That's the convention center that's adjacent to Rupp Arena there in downtown Lexington.

And we have a crew there, and we will be bringing you some coverage from there when it happens.

But in the meantime, we have our Kelsey Starks and our Laura Rogers Kelsey Starks is with us, and she is at the Daniel Cameron campaign.

And Laura Rogers is joining us from the Ed Gallrein campaign up in Hebron, Kentucky.

So first of all, we're going to go to you, Kelsey Starks, to tell us about what's happening there and the mood there in the room.

>> Well, we just heard what you said there, that Andy Barr has been called for this race.

But right now, I would say the crowd here is still hopeful, subdued.

We are in the chapel, 1888.

This is a former church that is turned into a community event space.

Small crowd here.

I would say we have not seen Daniel Cameron here yet, but we have seen his wife here and several other of his supporters.

Obviously, all of the supporters here understand that he is the underdog right now.

We also talked to State Senator Lindsay Tichenor about why she is here supporting Daniel Cameron tonight.

>> Daniel's been a friend of mine ever since I got involved in politics, and what really drew me in was his, his time as a as the a g working on all of the Covid stuff to make sure he was protecting the rights of our citizens, the rights of our businesses to stay open and trying to get our kids back in school.

So obviously I was drawn to him for those reasons, and I have found him to be an incredibly consistent person.

He has obviously tremendous principles and values that that are very similar to my own.

And he's always worked very consistently on those same issues, whether he was in office or out of office.

And I just know he will do a great job in the U.S.

Senate seat.

>> We were told that we will be hearing from Daniel Cameron when this race has been called.

And as you said, it has been called right now.

So we're standing by to hear from Daniel Cameron, and we will bring that to you as soon as it happens.

Reporting here from La Grange.

Back to you, Renee.

>> Thank you so much.

Kelsey Starks US at the Daniel Cameron headquarters there in La Grange.

We appreciate you so very much.

We've got right beside you Laura Rogers, who's at L. Gallrein campaign headquarters in Hebron, Kentucky.

And I imagine that the mood there, Laura, is pretty spirited right now, how this race is turning out.

>> Yes, dozens of supporters are here and Ed Gallrein is here.

He walked through the room about 15 minutes ago.

He's mixing and mingling with those supporters as they drop in and out.

And those early numbers certainly appear to be in his favor, and they're anxious to see how those continue to roll in tonight.

And if Ed Gallrein can pull this off, if he can unseat a 14 year incumbent in Congressman Thomas Massie.

And, of course, he certainly had the very strong support of President Trump.

And that's been crucial in this race.

He's President Trump's hand-picked candidate to take on Congressman Massie.

And he does appear to be very confident that he will be on the ballot in November and then go on to Washington.

So we hope to hear from him a little later.

But as you all have been talking about, all eyes on this House primary, it's the most watched race in the country, the most expensive making history with its campaign spending.

However, this is not the only race that has been on the ballot in Northern Kentucky this primary election.

There have been state legislative races, city and county races that are contested this primary election season as well.

And I spoke earlier today with the Northern Kentucky reporter who's been following this election very closely.

And we talked about how some of those races are shaping up.

>> There will never be another race like this in the history of Northern Kentucky.

>> That race is Congressman Thomas Massie versus Ed Gallrein Kenton.

Hornbeck is the Boone County reporter for Lincoln and KY, who's been following this race for quite some time.

>> I would say Thomas Massie's campaign specifically has a lot of grassroots enthusiasm behind it.

When you go to a Thomas Massie campaign event, he'll have a lot more younger people there.

There seems to be more people actively engaged with what he's saying, maybe hooting and hollering from the crowd a little bit.

>> But his opponent, Ed Gallrein, has deep support of his own, including from the president, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, joining a rally for Gallrein on Monday.

>> Gallrein filled up the ballroom at the airport DoubleTree, and it was packed.

You had people shouting out from the crowd in support.

So he has been able to garner some enthusiasm.

>> Congressman Thomas Massie isn't the only Northern Kentucky Republican fighting to keep his seat in public office.

>> This is probably the most interesting judge executive primary we've had in ten, 15 years here.

>> That's in Boone County, where judge executive Gary Moore has been at the helm of county government since the late 1990s.

>> Gary Moore is campaigning on experience what he's done for the county.

He really touts lowering the property tax rates underneath his leadership.

He's kind of overseeing a large quantity of economic growth in Boone County.

And a lot of that stems from the airport.

The county's exploded in population since the year 2000.

>> And is a Boone County commissioner challenging Moore in the Republican primary.

>> He wants growth, but he wants it to come slower or be more tactful, more tactical.

He doesn't want corporations or homebuilders to just build over farmland.

So he's kind of campaigned on, hey, let's curtail some of this growth and make it work more for the citizens of Boone County.

>> There are state legislative races of note as well.

Incumbent Republican State Representative Kim Moser of Taylor Mill and Kenton County facing opposition from Scott Burger.

>> And he is a former Army veteran and former CSX railroad worker.

And that race has been pretty contentious.

>> State Representative Kim Banta of Fort Mitchell, who represents part of Boone and Kenton counties, has two primary challengers in her district.

>> I would characterize her as a more Northern Kentucky establishment figure, and she's been challenged by from the right, essentially, by former Thomas Massie, a coal and a newer conservative candidate named Seth Winslow.

>> Young quarterbacks also following the state rep race in district 69, also covering parts of Boone and Kenton counties.

Representative Stephen Doan, facing opposition from Jesse Foreman.

>> Mr.

Foreman is running on a platform of more economic growth.

Not that Mr.

Doan doesn't want that, but he's kind of challenged Steve Doan from more of a conservative economic point.

>> But back to the fourth congressional House race, where campaign spending has topped $32 million for the coveted seat in the U.S.

House.

>> It's kind of jaw dropping to really quantify the amount of money being spent.

>> Yeah, more than $32 million in campaign spending in this GOP primary.

All eyes on Kentucky right here on the fourth Congressional District tonight.

And again, we're here at Ed Gallrein camp.

We hope to hear from him shortly as the activity is picking up here at Wenzel Distillery in downtown Covington and Kenton County.

And we will bring you more from this camp as we carry on with our election coverage.

Renee, I'll send it back to you in Lexington.

>> Thank you, Laura, for all your great work.

And I misspoke and said that he was in Hebron and he is in Covington.

So thank you for being where he is.

We appreciate that.

So let's talk a little bit about the fourth district.

But I also Trigg Grayson want to talk about those competitive primaries and those state House races.

You've got Kim Banta and Kim Moser, and I think there may be another one that could be facing a pretty sizable challenge.

They're up in that district, and we know there are some others that we want to get to.

But talk about those couple three.

>> First, the Kims, as we call.

>> Them, the Kims.

>> Yes.

Kim.

Kim.

There's another.

Yeah, there's another Kim out in Western Kentucky who may also have a tough race.

>> Richard Heath.

>> Right.

We'll talk about later as the central time zone results start coming in.

But Kim Banta was first elected about about ten years ago.

Her district is kind of Taylor Mill more southern part of the county, a little more a little more rural area.

Last year she lost her last two years ago, she barely won.

The woman who was going to Campbell, who was going to run again, was going to run again, dropped out, endorsed her opponent.

The results are pretty close.

It's I'm some of my sources are trying to figure out if everything's in or not, but it looks like Moser may hang on, but it is really close.

The other race, Kim Banta, the other Kim.

So Kim Banta, interestingly, has never had a primary.

She won a special election in 2019 when Diane Saint Andre resigned.

She then won unopposed in the primary in 2020, and that was her last race.

Was the general in 2020.

Also really close race.

One dynamic and Banta's race is that it's both Kenton and Boone.

So folks who are trying to follow you got to make sure that you pay attention to that.

And there's a third candidate in the race.

So whereas Moser Berger, head to head, there's.

And young and it might make it may be that Banta ends up pulling out this race because that third candidate, she may have less than 50%.

But that doesn't matter as long as you have the most votes.

>> That's right.

Plurality.

Any other comment on that?

>> I will say, and the Moser race, something that I think may be a first, if not close, is we've seen a lot of these ads from these dark money groups who are using AI, right, and not for good, good reasons and good on Kim Moser for pushing back.

And I think filing, filing a suit to try to rein in some of these AI ads that were just flat out lies about her and portrayed her as trying to say that she wasn't paying her taxes or something ridiculous.

And so there's a new law on the books about deep fakes, specifically about politicians and what you can use and what you can portray in front of voters.

And so this is being challenged maybe for the first time up there.

>> Yeah, it is.

And it's interesting because if you just made the claim that's false, that's not against the law.

It's not against the law to lie.

Right.

But it is against the law to use a deep fake to use AI to create a fake image.

And that's where she's filed.

>> On the state level.

>> On the state level.

Yeah.

It's a Kentucky law that was passed, I think two sessions ago.

The other, you know, there's a couple judge executive races in Northern Kentucky too, Chad Han, Gary Moore and Boone County and Steve Henry, the incumbent Campbell County.

Both those gentlemen were elected in 1998.

They've been there a long time, 28 years, and looking to have another term.

And those are both pretty close.

Turnout is way up.

That's one of the things that's really striking, is all these, you know, all the numbers that are coming in, there's so much higher than they were two years ago or four years ago, which I'm guessing has a lot to do with that fourth Congressional District race.

>> Yeah.

Bob, do you have anything you want to add there?

>> The participation in Northern Kentucky has been historically so low.

It is very encouraging to see a better turnout today, $32 million.

>> We appreciate that.

>> Oh, to cure that problem.

But if people get in the habit of voting and participating, particularly in these county races, it'll be good for the long term.

>> So we want to bring our viewers up to date.

And by the way, I should have said this when we first started our program about 45 minutes ago, that you can follow the results at the bottom of your screen.

You've probably already figured that out.

You don't need me to tell you, but we want to remind you that those will be there throughout the evening.

And but we are going to emphasize that in the fourth district GOP primary, Ed Gallrein looks to have a pretty sizable lead over the incumbent, Thomas Massie, 54.4% of the vote to Thomas Massie's, 45.6% of the vote.

And we've talked a little bit about the dynamics that played into this path toward victory.

It looks like, for Ed Gallrein.

And in just a few moments, we'll be going, okay, we are going to go to McKenna Horsley, who is with the Kentucky Lantern.

But we've got a little technical issue, but we'll try to effort her.

She's at the Thomas Massie headquarters, so we're going to get to you as soon as we can.

Just talk a little bit more about this fourth Congressional District race.

Al AI ads were also pretty prominent in that race.

>> Yeah.

You know, there was an ad created by an anti Massie group that had him in a thruple or threesome with two Democratic representatives of color.

And the last radio ads in this race had Massie calling Gallrein a traitor, a Trump traitor, and had Gallrein or one of the PAC supporting him, calling Massie a deserter.

You know, I wish that some of this $30 million could have gone to better uses.

And I also wish that the television stations who got a lot of this money had used some of it.

For more informed news coverage of the race.

You just don't see any meaningful coverage of these races by local television stations anymore.

And I got a call a spade, a spade here.

They're raking in all this money.

They ought to be putting some resources into helping voters make a decision.

>> But the candidates also refused to come on debate programs.

>> Yeah, but you could still have local news stations do stories that explain to people what's going on and maybe, you know, blow the whistle on some of these bad ads.

But given the, you know, the decline of newspapers has now gone to the television stations.

They're in the same kind or similar kind of shakeout that newspapers were.

And they're just not willing or able to perform the Democratic Republic function that they used to.

>> Any other comment Amy Wickliffe?

>> I would say the speed at which news rolls out these days on social.

Sometimes, I think for TV stations to catch up.

Right?

I mean, when you see it as an excuse for not doing more reporting that they should be doing.

But if you look at where people are getting a lot of their news, right, I wake up every morning and I check my X feed, I check right, I check a couple others, but, but that's where you're getting the quickness.

And that's where we saw also some of these, you know, 11th hour attacks on Massie just explode.

It was really unlike anything I've ever seen.

But that was you know, it's the evolution of social media and that influence and impact on our races that has really changed how where voters go to get their information to decide who they're going to vote for.

>> And it's reduced voters attention span.

>> Yeah, right.

>> You know, the voters attention spans are being reduced, and that's why they're going to it.

And it could be the the chicken and the egg.

>> A vicious spiral.

>> But to your point, I think you're seeing campaigns spend more money on social media and clips that are only 15 seconds at times.

When to your point, what what can you get out of that?

What are you really gaining from a 15 second ad other than the name, which is more marketing than it is education?

>> Yeah.

You're not appealing to the head or the heart.

You're appealing to the gut.

That's right.

Yeah.

And that's, you know, just lowering the, the level of our politics.

>> So McKenna horsley, who's with the Kentucky Lantern, is with us now.

Thank you, McKenna, for hanging in there with us as we work out our tech issues.

It's good to see you.

You were at the Thomas Massie headquarters, correct?

What can you tell us about the mood there right now giving where we just had discussed the numbers are heading in this race.

>> Yes.

So it's pretty crowded in here.

I would say that the mood is pretty jovial, even though we haven't seen a lot of some of that early voting turnout that's been counted heading toward Massie.

But there's a lot of music playing.

People from all over the country are here.

The press pool is also reflected in that way.

There's a lot of local reporters, but there's also international reporters here as well.

Also, KET is the choice of network to watch these results as they come in here at the National Party.

So people are definitely screens and watching what happens here as well.

>> Well, that's a good choice right there.

That's a good vote that we all are clapping for.

McKenna.

So I understand I do you have a timeline of when you think Massie might give a speech, and I'm curious about who else is in the room.

You know, you mentioned the national international reporters and local reporters, but are there other political figures there who were there on behalf of Massie as kind of ambassadors with him?

>> Yes.

We've seen a lot of conservative influencers in the room, as well as local supporters as well.

Earlier in the evening, I talked to state Representative TJ Roberts, who is a Massie ally and has been out on the ground knocking doors for him here in Kentucky, particularly in Boone County.

He told me that he feels optimistic about the evening.

He said that he was able to talk to some voters who were going to go for Gallrein, but after talking with them, they said that they would swing toward Massie.

So I definitely think it depends on who heads out to the headed out to the polls today and definitely see how that plays out and who they decide to vote for.

>> Do they still seem optimistic about a path forward to victory, even though the numbers look contrary to that?

>> We haven't heard a timeline for when Massie might be speaking.

I feel like people are still waiting to see those final votes counted, but it's it's not totally clear.

I would say at this point that, I mean, they're not throwing in the towel yet, is what I would say.

>> Have you been able to speak with Congressman Massie since your time there?

>> I have not spoken with him.

I haven't seen him out yet, but I he is supposed to make remarks sometime during this evening.

>> Okay.

McKenna.

Well, we may want to try to connect with you again if we can.

So we'll be in touch offline to try to do that.

And of course, we'll be on the lookout for when Congressman Massie does make some remarks.

We thank you so much for being with us for the time being.

We do know that Daniel Cameron is expected to make remarks in about 3 to 5 minutes, and we will effort to bring that to you live when it happens.

So we could be getting our first concession speech for the evening across.

>> Before we do that, we might want to give some returns in the Democratic primary for the.

>> Well, we've kind of neglected that, haven't we?

So go ahead.

>> There's a primary on the other side.

>> There certainly is.

>> Sherman Brown said.

Yes, there is.

>> Amy McGrath was ahead in early returns, but now the Louisville vote has started to come in, and Charles Booker is ahead with 42.5% of the vote.

McGrath has 39.6 and 27% of the votes have been counted.

There is no Fayette County vote in yet, and interesting to see that Booker has carried Madison County, Boyle County, and they're running neck and neck in Hopkins County.

>> Are you surprised by this?

>> Not really.

It looked like that McGrath would have a late surge from her TV.

And I think she was counting on people who don't really follow politics that closely, but remembered her and still had a good feeling about her.

You know, the the word in the Democratic Party.

On Amy McGrath for the last four years or six years has been.

She's toast.

It's over.

She's a two time loser.

But that's just among insiders, I think.

I think there's still plenty of voters out there who take a look at her and think, you know, she's a credible candidate and she's performing respectably, but she simply did not raise enough money to be competitive with Booker, who didn't have much money.

But he's got a heck of a following.

>> Right.

And she was on air here recently.

>> Yeah.

I mean, she's she's had ads and they were good ads, but it just wasn't enough.

And I think she had this baggage from her spectacular failure against McConnell in 2020.

>> Sherman Brown >> Left over.

Al.

>> I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

>> Bob.

Yeah.

Didn't she have money left over before that?

She could have used this time.

>> I'm not sure about that.

>> I thought there was talk of 6 or $7 million left over.

>> I would say in that race, it's just interesting how many times she's been on the ballot.

And she still has not been able to really perfect how she can connect with voters.

Right.

And that is just you either learn how to do that and learn how to protect perfect your craft or you don't.

And it's really fascinating to watch.

I mean, she looks like the exact same candidate we saw several years ago in several cycles.

And so it was time for something new for her, and she just wasn't able to do that.

>> Sherman Brown, I want you to chime in here because that's a question I had asked her about, you know, and she would constantly when she sent out her information.

Yes, I've lost twice.

And she was constantly beating up on the fact that, you know, she'd been beaten before.

I mean, she seemed to not get out of that victim mentality a little bit.

>> I think a couple of things.

One, it is still only 28% of the votes.

I think, you know, al said that.

But just to be clear, and it is you know, there are still plenty of time here.

But to me, this race in the last couple of weeks at least has been in the numbers.

You know, there's not been a lot of polling on it, but it's been between Booker and McGrath.

You've also got Pam Stevenson who ran.

And we'll talk about her, her race or her seat that she gave up to run is that is going to be a primary that we'll have as well.

And then newcomer Dale Romans.

I mean, I think there's, you know, as far as folks running, you talked about earlier, and especially on the county and the local races, not a lot of folks being out there.

This is one that even when he got in, I was kind of excited to see just the name, the where he's coming from, all of that, what that would mean.

And, you know, there was not a lot of money that was raised in the entire primary, but he seemed to have what I thought would look like he was raising and kind of moving in that in that direction, at least.

But as of right now, with only 28% in he's polling, he's coming in in fourth.

Back to your question.

>> So can I pause right there?

Because we think we Daniel Cameron has entered the room there and we can see him there.

He is right there.

Let's go to Daniel Cameron right now.

>> That are in this room this evening.

Just how lucky, how fortunate, how blessed Mackenzie and I to call you friends, to call some of you family members, but to to call you all brothers and sisters in Christ.

[APPLAUSE] And these.

In Life a good friend of mine told me this.

Russell Coleman said that life is is not linear.

There are ups and downs, there are peaks and valleys.

But you keep going, you keep working.

You keep struggling.

And that's what Mackenzie and I are going to continue to do.

We're going to keep raising our boys.

We're going to keep serving.

>> The.

>> Lord, and we're going to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

And I know every single one of you all have stood firm with us along this journey.

And I'm grateful.

And I can't go on without saying these races, you got to have somebody that supports you and stands firm with you.

And I've been fortunate and blessed to be on this journey with my best friend and my soulmate, Mackenzie Cameron.

A lot of you, all over the course of these last several weeks got to see me out on the trail as we did our statewide tour, but that was only possible because of Mackenzie, because she was willing to do a lot of Bath time and and get them in for bedtime by herself.

And I told her that she's been our anchor and she has been the cornerstone of our family and our rock.

And I'll be forever grateful for being on this journey with us.

Let me also say to my mom, who is a prayer warrior, and even last night, I know in this morning, sending us encouraging texts and mom, I'm so grateful for you.

Thank you, thank you.

And to my dad who just recently moved back, however, he did not become a Kentucky vote voter.

He's just across the river in Indiana.

But dad, so thankful that you're here tonight as well and glad that.

>> You're back home.

>> To Graham's and Papa Dee, to Darrell and Susan, who have been on this journey with us since 2020.

When Mackenzie and I started dating and got married.

Thank you all.

Thank you to you all, to the entire family for the way in which you've embraced me and been on this crazy journey with us.

It's been a crazy one, but I love you all.

And so very thankful.

[APPLAUSE] Very thankful.

And I want to say to Nathaniel Hurt, to Abby Graves.

Nathaniel, thank you for the way in which you you ran this campaign, obviously.

When you came on board, it was we were very grateful and thankful for your service and know that you're going to have a bright future man, a bright future to Ashley, who has been my right hand man.

You know, Atlee is someone who indulged my 1995 WWF kid inner person.

We spent a lot of time on the road, and I can't have imagined doing it with anyone else.

Atlee is like a younger brother to me and will continue to be like a younger brother to me.

So grateful for you brother, I appreciate you.

And Abby Graves who came here from Tennessee to be with us.

Thank you and Dan Graham for helping us on the fundraising front.

Let me also say Danny Diaz is here from FP one.

I want to thank him as well.

And then and then of course, who when I was still at Frost Brown Todd, came over when I was running for Attorney General Brandon Moody, who has been with me from the very beginning, rode over with us and so honored by you, brother.

Thank you.

I did call Congressman Barr, and I told him that I was grateful for the campaign that he ran, and for the way in which he articulated his vision for our 120 counties.

And my hope is that when the votes are tallied in November and the last vote is counted, he will be Senator elect Andy Barr and.

And what I told him and I offered him on the phone was that if I can be of any service to him during this fall season and during this general election campaign, I will certainly do it.

But to all of you all, again, it has been an honor of a lifetime to see so many friends and familiar faces that are here this evening that have walked alongside us.

I'm grateful.

Know that this journey for us is not over because we get to be parents to to three boys.

Our mission field is going to be our home.

It's going to be Theodore Bennett and Harrison, and I can't wait to see, as they grow up what they ultimately provide to this community, because that's why we got into this race.

It was about our kids, your kids and your grandkids, and ensuring that they lived in a country that lived up to the ideals of its founding country, that was based on merit and opportunity.

And I want them and all the kids across this Commonwealth to know that they are image bearers of God and that they can do anything that they set their mind to.

I think that's something that every day, all of us are charged with in talking to future generations, to let them know that anything can be achieved in this great country.

This is a shining city on a hill.

It is very much the greatest nation on earth.

And it's in that spirit.

It's been an honor to run in this race.

It's been an honor to serve in public service, and it's been an honor to know you all.

God bless you and God.

>> Bless you.

Thank you.

>> You just heard Daniel Cameron, who made his concession speech rather graciously saying that he would help Eddie Barr become Senator elect Andy Barr and that his journey is not over.

But he would be in the mission field at home.

And so we'll talk a little bit about what political career could be in store, if any, for Daniel Cameron.

But giving a fairly gracious concession speech tonight.

Amy Wickliffe.

>> It absolutely was, and I would expect nothing less.

He is an incredible speaker, a very gifted speaker.

But if you look at the way he ran his race, he never really went nasty, right?

He never really went hard.

He didn't have to.

And but that's just not his style.

And so I think for him to stand up, this was a very well, it was a hard speech for him to give.

He knew exactly what he needed to do to be able to unite the Republican Party going forward, because I think at this point, he knows it's this race is bigger than him.

It's bigger than Andy Barr.

The historic the historical perspective for this U.S.

Senate race, which I hope we'll talk about a little bit tonight, is is very impactful for Kentucky, but also for the United States.

I also want to give a shout out because I said it a couple years ago, seeing Mackenzie stay in their spouses of of individuals who run for office.

There is a special place in heaven for them.

>> And those who had babies there.

>> And it's Mackenzie, it's Davis Barr, it's Don Alvarado, right?

I mean, I could I could name all of them.

They work just as hard, if not harder than their spouses.

>> And certainly she was emotional.

>> And it's really hard night when when you don't come out on top.

>> Yeah.

Trey Grayson, he probably saw the writing on the wall.

>> Yeah, I'm sure he did.

And he's he's smart.

I worked with him for a couple of years before he got elected attorney general.

I watched this kind of wistfully because I think about how much he's got the most charisma, the most political, raw political talent of anybody of this generation in Kentucky politics.

And I think about a couple of the strategic decisions that he made.

One, to give up a safe attorney general reelection to try to run and to beat a popular incumbent governor, impressively winning a primary by a pretty large margin over some pretty good opponents, and then losing and then beginning this race with, I thought at the beginning of too strong of a Declaration of independence against one of his mentor, Mitch McConnell.

>> He put it on video.

>> Yeah.

>> He didn't have to put it on video.

>> Yeah.

He didn't have to do that.

He needed to do, you know, he needed to have some independence.

You know, Steve Beshear lost the governor's race in a Senate race, came back two term governor, son might be president.

Right.

You know, so we we see people who have natural political talent have the ability to come back.

But he's going to have to figure out what's what's next for him.

He's got you know, as Amy said, there's a lot of people really like him on a personal level, even folks who didn't support him in this race, who want to help him figure out what's next and help him be that servant that he talked about.

And that's, you know, I think it's incumbent upon all of the rest of all of us who know him, to help him figure that out.

We need him to stay involved.

>> Yeah, al Cassie came out really strong.

I mean, the polls showed him early on, really his name recognition.

>> He had run statewide twice, attorney general and governor.

He had the McConnell network that helped him in those races, but he didn't have the McConnell network this time.

Andy Barr was better situated to make this race because as somebody who's sitting on the banking committee in the House, that's access to easy money, campaign money, and Daniel Cameron did not have that kind of connection.

And he alienated some of the McConnell people by the remarks that Trey referred to.

>> Yeah.

Let's talk a little bit more about his strategy.

Amy Wickliffe how would you do an autopsy on his campaign strategy?

>> I think I think the notes on on how he, you know, his comments about leader McConnell, right?

I think that that really kind of led him down a path that was hard to make up for along the way.

And we'll see.

You know, Daniel Cameron, unfortunately, can never get the fundraising apparatus off the ground when you don't get the fundraising apparatus off the ground.

It's really hard to convey your message to voters, especially when you're up against such a prolific fundraiser in Andy Barr.

And so to Trey's point, I think we'll see.

We all want him to succeed.

We don't know what his next step might be, but he's not going away.

I think we'll see him again in some capacity, maybe not running for office again, but he's he is a gifted.

He's a great talent for Kentucky and so look forward to seeing what he does next.

>> Bob.

>> I remember where I was sitting when Cameron had the announcement come out that he was running for governor, and I was stunned because we all thought he would run again for AG and kind of clear the field for this Senate race.

Tell me if I'm missing something.

But that's the way.

That's the way it was headed.

He is very popular, and I thought in this race, just as Nate Morris went very hard against McConnell and Cameron separated himself, that's not a winning strategy either way.

And it just was not going to work.

We could all reflect on that as the night goes on.

But many Republicans who voted today, if they voted in primaries in recent years, or generals had voted for Cameron 3 or 4 times, twice for AG, twice for governor, primary, general.

But it did not translate to this race because Barr ran a very superior campaign from day one through today.

>> Yeah.

Sherman Brown do you have any thoughts about it?

Trey evoked former Governor Steve Beshear as one who suffered some defeat but came back 20 something years later.

You see that possibility for Daniel Cameron.

>> We got cut when we were talking because that's where I was going to go.

When I was talking about you were talking about Amy McGrath earlier of losing to.

I don't ever count anybody out having worked on that race in 2007.

And when we came in, you know, that was you just you knew coming in he had a following.

He had people that knew who he was.

We need to get on TV and, and really kind of define ourselves before others did in that primary, which we did.

But, you know, I wouldn't put it past him.

It seems like he's got a whatever his future, whatever he wants to do, I wouldn't write that off at all.

>> So we have Austin Horn with us now.

Political writer, reporter for the Lexington Herald leader.

He was at the Andy Barr campaign headquarters, which I imagine things are pretty jubilant there.

Good evening to you, Austin.

Thank you for connecting with us and your patience in doing so.

Tell us about how things are looking there.

I'm sure.

Pretty jubilant.

As I said.

>> Jubilant is the right word.

Renee.

We're listening to a couple different custom songs for Andy Barr right now.

In honor of his projected victory.

And things are things are going really well for him across the state, as we've seen with these results rolling in the Trump endorsement in general, the big takeaway is that it's still very, very strong in Kentucky, and we can see that with all the results we've seen so far, we don't have Fayette County results, in my opinion, really the only kind of cliffhanger we've got left going here is the six congressional Democrat race, where the Fayette County result is probably going to dictate what that's looking like.

Zach Dembo is looking strong, but we'll see.

But here in the Senate race, it's it's a blowout win for Andy Barr.

And there's lots of people here at the central Bank center downtown.

And things are just.

It's overall a very excited and positive vibe.

>> So let me ask you, Austin, about why Fayette County results still haven't come in.

Do you know the reason for why we don't have those at 8:11 p.m.

Eastern time?

>> I've got no scoop for you on that front.

I will say Fayette County has been slower than slower than other counties we've seen in elections past.

And this year has been no exception.

So far.

It looks like Cherlynn Stevenson is she's in second place to Zach Dembo.

She's about 1500 votes out.

That's a gettable sort of margin in Fayette County, but she better hope for a strong, strong showing if she wants to defeat Zach Dembo, who's currently in pole position.

>> Yeah.

And even though you are at the Barr campaign headquarters, I want you to talk a little bit about the sixth district, because you have covered that as well, and particularly the Democratic primary.

Tell us about how the the front runners in that race and what their message was and how they tried to separate themselves from each other.

>> Yeah.

Zach Dembo really leaned on his professional background.

He's somebody who, I think on paper just reads as a very strong Democratic candidate.

He's a veteran.

He worked for both Governor Beshear's office and as a federal prosecutor.

He's got sort of a timely story because he says he resigned during the Trump administration because of alleged corruption that he's seen, whereas Cherlynn Stevenson is more kind of the hometown girl.

She's somebody who is well known in Democratic circles here in Kentucky, has the support of people like Lieutenant Governor Jacqueline Coleman.

And it just has a very strong grassroots kind of base than the other candidate that I think we're seeing sort of pop off the page a little bit who doesn't seem like they'll win, but could perform maybe a little stronger than people projected, is Aaron Petrie.

She was she sort of carved out a lane as the most progressive of the bunch.

And I think her performance, she's at 14% right now, but I expect her to do better in Fayette County than the surrounding counties.

Her performance could tell us that Fayette County is actually pretty progressive.

It's not generally seen that way, but if you look at the actual results, they're reliably more Democratic than Jefferson County, which I think sort of sort of changes a lot of people's priors that they had about the political landscape in Kentucky.

>> Well, Austin Horn with the Lexington Herald-Leader, we thank you for a few minutes of your time, and we may try to reconnect with you again.

We appreciate talking with you.

>> Thanks, Renee.

>> So as I understand it, Thomas Massie is taking the stage in Covington, and I think we're going to show you a split shot of that.

And we will go to to him.

He is approaching the stage, as I can see.

There he is.

And he's doing either a selfie or a video, which is pretty on point and on brand for Thomas Massie.

He seems to be pretty jovial at this point, given that he will has is lost this reelection bid.

But here is Congressman Thomas Massie.

>> Listen.

I would I would have come out sooner, but I had to call my while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.

[APPLAUSE] [APPLAUSE] I did get the call.

I have called and conceded the race.

We've been honorable the whole time and we're going to stay that way.

You know?

Welcome to the most expensive congressional primary ever, 150 year history.

It's not just the most expensive.

This thing went on longer than Vietnam.

It started nine months ago, and they didn't even have a candidate.

And they decided they want to take me out.

I want to start by thanking the volunteers poured into this.

Some of you Perry some of you are homegrown.

I love all of you.

>> All.

>> Mansi Bath.

>> All right, I see.

>> I'm going to have to knock.

Some of my staff have been with me from the very.

And they have done so much.

They've.

You know, we've never had contrary to.

>> All right.

So we apologize.

We're having some audio difficulties with Thomas Massie right now.

We want to be able to bring you that speech in its entirety uninterrupted and without those technical difficulties.

So we're recording that a clean version, as we would call it, and we will turn that back around and bring that to you as soon as we possibly can.

We understand that Ed Gallrein is expected to speak, am I correct?

Control room and just a moment, and we'll try to get to that live if we can.

I want to go to you, Trey Grayson, real quickly to talk about the point we were making with Austin Horn, about why is it taking the Fayette County results to come in so slow and so long?

What's the answer?

>> So Fayette County decided to upload everything at once, and they're still waiting on one drive USB drive.

They call it a V drive to come back in from out in the county.

And so that's why most counties will go through and do partial results up at a time.

But Fayette decided to wait for all of them at once.

There's no issues to be worried about, but the Texas Susan, Susan Lamb, and she said, we'll have them.

We'll have them quickly across.

>> I think we need to note just what a strong victory Ed Gallrein is rolling up here.

With 79% of the votes counted.

He's got 54.5 to Massie's, 45.5.

And the only counties that Massie has carried are his home county of Lewis and Gallrein got a bunch of votes there, you know, 1084 to 1061 and Mason, where, as noted earlier, there was a 33 vote margin for Massie.

So it was a repudiation of Thomas Massie as fourth district congressman.

Not so much, I think, because of Trump, but because he'd been digging himself a hole for a long time.

You know, there were plenty of Republicans in that district who did not like the kind of congressman he was and given an opportunity to vote for someone who was credible and had the president's endorsement.

They did it.

>> Amy.

>> One thing I'm looking for in the aftermath of this Massie loss is, is where do the Liberty Party candidates go now in Northern Kentucky area, right.

They stuck strong with him, right.

All of the the local state reps stuck very strong with him and supported him.

And so I'm curious if there's any fallout.

What are they thinking after this loss?

>> Would they not just defect to Ed Gallrein.

>> Know, they'll be a struggle for power within that group.

>> I'm curious to see and what what happened?

Where do they go now?

I think that will be really curious.

>> But there are some other races where the liberty candidates in Northern Kentucky are doing pretty well.

It's maybe a little early to like call places up there, but the Boone County Judge executive race, Chad Hand looks like he's in a really strong position.

He's a liberty candidate to defeat Gary Moore, the the state Senate state rep race with Kim Banta looks too close to call.

Koch.

SEEK is kind of a hybrid.

Liberty and social tried to fuze them together, but Massie's been the protector.

Massie's the one who has endorsed in primaries and helped to raise money and give credibility.

And his supporters have taken over.

Like Boone County, where I live, they control that party and they control other other county parties throughout the fourth district.

So naturally, that power will probably go a little bit to, you know, should should move.

But yeah, it'll they'll be a lot of factional struggles inside the Lewis County numbers are interesting because when Massie first won that judge executive's race, I think it was a three way primary in 2010 when he first got elected.

I suspect those other two factions have never really quite gotten over that.

And even though they love having a.

>> Congressman with Massie, you know, his attitude is, I am who I am, and that's who I will continue.

>> To be.

The sailor man.

I'm Thomas Massie, the congressman.

>> But you got it.

>> And there was a certain appeal to that, right?

>> Yeah, that was part of his appeal.

That was part of his brand.

It was interesting.

>> That folk hero, I think, is how he described.

>> Most incumbents are the ones that skip the debates and don't go to the candidate forums and don't talk to the camera, you know, when they're when they're running their ads.

Massie was leaning into that personality.

I think he wanted the voters to the fourth district to say, you may not like how I always vote, but you know where I stand and you like me on a personal level and Gallrein the kind of step back and just kept that message simple.

I'm for Trump.

Or if you don't like Massie, for whatever reason, I'm your vehicle.

>> And as Massie said, when he was here by himself on the candidate appearance, he said, even though I'm called an obstructionist, I have my I have never blocked a vote.

Right.

It's any kind of policy of Donald Trump still managed to make it across the finish line, whether I voted yes or no.

>> Yeah, I remember having that conversation with him last year and we were curious, like, well, Trump really be that mad because, you know, all those bills passed.

Yeah.

But yeah, he was mad.

He was mad.

>> He was the incumbent who remained the insurgent.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

>> True.

>> Yeah.

Well, Booker and Campbell are terrific economic forces for our state and a lot of great things happening in Northern Kentucky that we see and monitor all the time, from family there to friends to clients and so on, they have wanted there's been an undercurrent wanting a more call it traditional or usual type of representation like Louisville has had in Congress or Lexington's had in Congress.

Elections have been purple back and forth and back and forth, but always a Congress member who would go to bat for causes in Washington.

Massie, not so much.

He just didn't do it that way.

He didn't take the slate of issues from different professions and try to pass them in Congress or advocate for them always, and didn't seize the business momentum in Northern Kentucky and say, I'll fight for you all the way.

>> And Ed Gallrein has positioned himself as the Chamber of Commerce type of person.

>> He would be the alternative for sure.

As Trey has pointed out so well, a lot of people probably in Northern Kentucky think they would have been a better Chamber of Commerce type candidate and could have won today had they had the same endorsement from the president.

But Messi has done a lot of good, a lot of ways, and he has that.

If you want to elect somebody who votes their conscience and never wavers from that, he is that kind of person.

I'm not sure what his political future will be.

He's toyed with governor even said if he won this race, he might run for governor.

Right now that he's lost it, he has a different consideration for 2027.

>> With Jamie Comer about that first, you are watching KET primary election coverage.

It is about 22 minutes after the hour, and we thank you for being with us if you've been with us since 7:00.

Hip, hip.

Hooray for you.

And we'll be here until ten.

And we thank you for hanging in there with us.

We do have a lot we're still trying to get to.

We tried to get Thomas Massey just a moment ago, and we're sorry that we couldn't bring that to you live.

We were efforting to turn that around.

Once he finishes to bring that to you uninterrupted.

And we've got a great gang who are sitting right here in front of me, but we also have a couple of dynamic duo who are often here on our election night.

And you've talked to them sometimes throughout the month on our Inside Kentucky Politics segment.

During Kentucky edition, we have with us Trey Watson, a Republican strategist, and Jared Smith, a Democratic strategist.

Hey, guys, what do you think about what you've seen so far?

And let's start with the fourth Congressional District.

>> You know, I said last night, Kentucky night that I thought turnout was going to be the key.

And we saw big turnout, 25% in Boone County, in a county that normally votes in the teens.

Kenton County, same story.

And, you know, I think if turnout was normal, Thomas Massie supporters are the people that they they passed by the polling precinct every single Tuesday just to make sure they're not missing an election.

And, you know, they they were going to vote regardless.

Those extra voters that increased turnout that was that was Gallrein.

And that was kind of Trump helping turn out his people.

Trump's unique.

I've never seen a politician that has that level of transference.

When he endorses somebody in a primary, it means something.

>> Yeah.

Jared Smith, what's your take on it?

>> I think if you told us we were going to call that race that quick, nobody would have believed you.

I was shocked at how quick that was called and it was called correctly.

I was just shocked that the vote came in that fast and that hard for for Gallrein, especially since he struggled in a state Senate race within the district earlier.

>> So let's move real quickly, guys, and talk about the U.S.

Senate primary.

We do know that Andy Barr is coming to the stage shortly.

So if we cut you off, that's why I think his kids are at the podium right now.

And we'll let them do their bit, and then we'll go to the candidate nominee in just a moment.

I want to start with you about this race between Andy Barr and Daniel Cameron.

The main takeaways here, in your view, are.

>> You know, I think that Andy Barr just he's he's been working for this entire life.

He's a he's a very workmanlike politician, kind of a throwback.

He started off as a Hill staffer, came back, was attorney for a governor, worked through the local party, got elected congressman, made those relationships.

And, you know, it's it's it's one of I think it was an interesting race up until Barr up until Trump endorsed.

But it's one of the most kind of boring rises to the U.S.

Senate that you'll see in this in this generation.

>> Tres Watson.

Let's put a pin in it.

Here we are, Andy Barr.

>> Well, my fellow Kentuckians, we did it.

Thanks to all of you.

I stand here tonight as the Republican nominee for the United States Senate, for the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Thank you.

Thank you to all of you who knocked on doors, made phone calls, donated money, got out the vote.

This victory is as much yours as it is mine.

But it's bigger than that.

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.

But before I speak about that, I want to thank some very special people in my life.

First and foremost, I want to thank thank Almighty God, our creator.

Our creator, who has endowed us with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and our Lord and Savior who has called us all to our God given purpose, to do good works and to make a positive difference in this world.

Thank you to my family, especially my beautiful wife Davis, my precious children, Eleanor, Mary Clay Hale and Virginia.

Their sacrifice, forbearance, and love during this busy year and a half was absolutely incredible.

None of this would have been possible without their support, as they gave up time with their husband and father for family dinners, school carpool attendance at volleyball tournaments, dance recitals and bedtime stories to my parents, Donna and Garland Barr, for their unconditional love and encouragement.

For instilling in me and my siblings the values of honesty, hard work, perseverance, and of course, compassion to others, to my entire extended family.

Thank you all for your love and support, to my dedicated staff and incredible campaign team.

Simply put, this milestone would not have been possible without each of you and the tireless work you've put in over the past months and years.

Together, we all dedicate this victory to our dear friend and faithful servant, my late District Director and campaign manager, Tatum Dale.

I want to thank my opponents in this primary Michael Farris, Nate Morris and Daniel Cameron.

Each of these men ran a spirited campaign and I'm grateful for it.

Contested primaries are are about ideas, and they are at the root of our democracy.

By running, they made Kentucky stronger, America stronger, and they made me a better candidate.

I also want to thank President Donald J. Trump.

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.

In addition, I want to extend my appreciation to Senator McConnell for his decades of service to our Commonwealth and this country.

Ladies and gentlemen, look at the world around you.

One party wants to open our borders, let people into our country illegally, and defund the police.

I do not.

One party wants to replace free enterprise with socialism and promote government dependency over the dignity of work.

I do not.

One party wants to use fear to drive an irrational shift to more expensive, less reliable energy that will that will hurt our economy.

I do not.

One party thinks it's a good idea to force women athletes to compete against biological males.

I do not.

And one party thinks taxes should be higher.

Wealth is wrong.

Health insurance should come only from government and that Kentucky coal should be eliminated, taking with it thousands of good, high paying jobs.

I do not support these crazy ideas.

And that's why I say the future will be built by Kentucky.

Common sense or the craziness of politicians on the extreme far left who promote these radical ideas.

It's almost like they learned nothing from the last election.

They want to turn Kentucky into the commonwealth of Kamala.

I will not let it happen.

I will fight so it can never happen.

Not here, not now, not this election, not ever.

My fellow Kentuckians, at my core, I'm forever a hopeful man.

I've been through a lot, but the Lord made me.

Someone whose glass of bourbon is always full.

When you're born in Kentucky.

Blessed as a husband and father of four beautiful children.

And when you're privileged to serve the great people of our Commonwealth, how could I not be hopeful?

I'm hopeful because I believe in opportunity and advancement for all, regardless of race, gender, or place of birth.

Every American is entitled to the American dream, especially those of you who work hard and struggle.

And I will fight for you.

>> Hey.

>> I'm hopeful because I believe in American energy dominance with Kentucky leading the way.

And I'm hopeful because, as Ronald Reagan said, America's best days are ahead.

We have a storied 250 year old history, but there are more stories to write.

Those stories must be based not on the left's utopian dreams that are driven by socialists, candidates with Nazi tattoos or a left wing fringe.

We in Kentucky do not recognize, but instead they must be based on individualism, hard work, perseverance, faith in God, family, the Second Amendment, freedom, and a U.S.

military second to none.

And let me thank all of the veterans in this room and throughout this Commonwealth.

Anything we do in our future is because what you did in the past.

My friends, in six months there will be another election night.

And between now and then, the left will make its stand.

It will bring its craziness to our borders.

I have work to do.

Just as I said when I declared my candidacy in the primary.

I will fight for our way of life, for our farms, our factories, our horse industry, our bourbon for coal, for low taxes, for high growth, for safe towns, safe cities, civility, respect, and fairness to all.

>> You are watching Congressman Andy Barr make his speech accepting the Republican nomination on the right side of your screen, Ed Gallrein is getting ready to speak.

We will join Ed Gallrein when he begins.

We'll keep listening to Congressman Andy Barr.

>> This contest between Kentucky, common sense and the craziness of the extreme far left is important to the future of our country.

It's important which party controls the Senate, and it's vital to your children and grandchildren that common sense prevails.

And so to the good and hard working people of Kentucky, I will never let.

>> All right, so you just heard Congressman Andy Barr give his victory speech there.

Ed Gallrein is doing the same from the fourth Congressional District Republican primary.

>> Of our nation at this critical time.

I want to emphasize that this critical time and juncture in history.

Thank you, Mister President.

I want to thank my family that have endured this campaign in many ways that have been so unfair to them.

I want to thank my team back here, and this is some of them here.

Round of applause.

Now, we got a saying on the farm that family farm is a contact sport.

I can tell you that campaigning is one as well, isn't it folks?

A lot of talent back here.

I want another round of applause for my team.

Not only the ones in here, but I see them out there as well.

Thank y'all.

Thank y'all for what you've done and thank you for what you do.

Can I take a minute and also thank my teachers all the way back to Miss Hardin at Saint Saint Paul, sister Mary Dorothea, Sister Mary Fulgens, coach Walt Heath from Franklin Simpson just sent me a note and I could go on.

But the kind of people that shaped me into the young man I was and never realized here, so many years later, you know what they'd done, including my FFA teacher, Mr.

Hammers, World War two veteran sniper.

Wonderful man.

Humble as the day is long, I want to thank my teammates from FFA as Future Farmers of America for you out of Towner folks.

That's a big deal in Kentucky.

Okay, FFA to football to Seal team and the Joint Special Operations team I served on all over the world.

Thank them for.

They made me the better person that I am.

And the more I was promoted, the more awards I got, the more humble I came.

Now my focus is on advancing the president's and the party's agenda to put America first and Kentucky always.

I'm going to keep it simple because again, I speak fluent Kentuckian because for the same reasons I joined in 1983 to serve our nation.

Remember, I didn't join to be a Navy Seal.

I joined to make a difference, and being a Navy Seal was the path to do that.

Weren't no books and movies never met one.

I learned to swim in the Ohio River.

That's ill advised, but that's what I did on the farm.

Would have got a weapon had I found out at the house or I did that.

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.

Thank you all for coming tonight.

Thank you all.

>> Well, that was a little shorter than anticipated.

It caught us off guard there.

That's Ed Gallrein.

>> That was a campaign run by the white House.

You know, he Ed Gallrein was a vessel into which the campaign could be poured, and he turned out to be an imperfect vessel.

>> But he got.

>> The job done, showed his power in this election.

>> Yeah.

Well, and he thanked him first right off the bat.

So that was the right thing to do, right?

>> If he hadn't done that, he would not have ordered his speech correctly.

I mean, that's the you know that in this race, he's not where he doesn't have that check mark next to his name.

Right.

Without President.

>> Trump, America First Kentucky always.

Yeah, yeah.

Any other response to Mr.

Gallrein speech?

And and Congressman Barr, so we apologize that we kind of dipped out of that to bring you.

Ed Gallrein speech in its entirety.

We will have all of these speeches online for you to view tomorrow without interruption.

>> Amy Wickliffe talk a little bit about the importance of this race bigger than any candidate, right?

We are, as Kentucky Republicans, headed into our post McConnell era, right?

Whether you voted for McConnell or against McConnell, he has shaped Kentucky politics over the last several decades.

He's also shaped the trajectory of the United States Senate and our judiciary.

We cannot express enough how important he has been to lead the Republican Party of Kentucky over the last several years.

So this is a big move for Andy Barr.

There's a lot of pressure on Andy Barr not just to win in November, but he is going to help write the next chapter for Kentucky politics.

And so those are big shoes to fill.

Now he will be his own man.

We know that.

But I think this is a very historic moment in Kentucky politics and where we're going in this post.

>> McConnell era.

What does the post Mitch McConnell era look like when you had Ed Gallrein and Andy Barr and, well, others.

>> It'll it'll be it'll never be the same.

They'll probably never even if even from the next Republican governor, you will probably never have somebody who dominates the Republican Party.

Now that it's a majority party in Kentucky the way Mitch McConnell did, he.

There were so many folks who got their start working on campaigns, including all of the major candidates in that Senate race.

But I think what what Andy Barr did in this congressional race was pretty incredible.

He was able to kind of basically run two campaigns at once.

He had a and we've talked about this.

There was one primary electoral campaign with one voter, and then there was another one with 1.6 million Republicans who were eligible to vote for him.

And he navigated all that.

He was able to appeal to voters and Trump voters.

He was also able to appeal to more traditional Republicans.

And he did all that.

He raised the money.

He he, you know, leaned in on into his message, into his voting record and fuzed them all together and earned earned the endorsement.

He also earned it by working his tail off.

I mean, in some respects, this is it was an old school race, even though he was in Washington doing his job, going to more events, taking flying to Dulles to get back to Kenton County for a Republican event that Thomas Massie couldn't get back to.

I mean, there were a whole lot of times he talked about being away from not being able to do bedtime stories for his daughters.

I mean, he made the fundraising phone calls.

He was all over it.

And so in some respects, there's an old school nature to this race where here you have a congressman who's been battle tested, you know, beating Ben Chandler in 2012 was a really tough race.

Beating Amy McGrath was a tough race.

He's been battle tested.

He traveled the state.

He built relationships.

There's an article, I think, in today's Herald-Leader, talking about some of the relationships that Andy has formed for decades that he's maintained.

But he but he worked it and he got and he was a good congressman.

He got promoted.

You know, like normally in the old days, you would your best Congress members got promoted to become senators.

So he did that.

And he played by the new rules of earning an endorsement from the most powerful Republican in America.

It was a pretty outstanding effort and makes me think that he's going to be he may you know, he will be one of the most pivotal figures in this new post.

McConnell Republican era.

>> So I want to ask Trey Watson, what does the post Mitch McConnell era look like?

And how is Andy Barr going to carry that mantle and keep Kentucky punching above its weight, perhaps in Washington?

>> Yeah.

You know, I think I was talking before the speech.

That's in a lot of ways, Andy Barr's rise to the U.S.

Senate has been unremarkable, kind of unremarkable in a remarkable era of politics.

It's it's as old school as you can get just working your way up.

And I think the most important thing for Barr is, you know, one thing we have talked about, we've talked about the politics, but it's the constituent services is one of the most underrated things about Andy Barr's congressional career and Mitch McConnell's Senate career.

There are people out there who voted for Andy Barr, who will support Andy Barr, who supported Mitch McConnell, not because they agree with their politics, but because when they needed help with Social Security or passport or immigration papers or VA benefits or a federal grant, whatever it is, their offices and their services were there to help them.

Andy Barr knows part of the reason he beat Ben Chandler was because people were unsatisfied with the constituent services they got from Chandler.

He knew that he dedicated his office to it, and he's perfect to slip into that McConnell role because people don't call Rand Paul when they need stuff in the federal office.

There's no offense to Rand Paul's staff.

They call Mitch McConnell.

And so Barr can step very easily into that role among the delegation and play that part for for Kentucky citizens, for that very just rudimentary customer service job that members of Congress are responsible for.

>> Jared Smith, I want to come to you to talk about how the Democrat primary.

Democratic primary shaping up on the U.S.

Senate side, we see that Charles Booker is in a slight lead over.

Amy McGrath.

Dissect this for us.

>> Yeah, it's interesting to see.

You know, both Charles and Amy had 100% name ID, so it's no surprise that they pulled ahead.

I think Andy Barr is very happy that Dale Romans wasn't able to get as much traction as he thought he was going to be able to early on in the race.

And so I just, you know, I just, you know, really Booker and McGrath, you know, people have already decided about them before, you know, and listening to Barr's concession or Barr's victory speech, you know, I didn't hear anything about rising grocery prices.

I didn't hear anything about rising gas, rising diesel, rising insurance premiums, things that are affecting everyday Kentuckians.

And so I think that they're going to have to he's going to have to address those issues in the in the general election, even if it's against Booker, who will be a far left candidate, or McGrath, who will run probably on a very national security platform for her campaign.

>> Sherman Brown, I want to come to you for your thoughts on Democratic primary in U.S.

>> Senate.

Well, I thought back to what exactly what Jared said.

I think it was interesting to me as we were listening to it, al and I were sitting here and I off off camera, but we were talking Barr talked about fear being one of the things that, you know, this other party being the Democrats.

But then everything he mentioned was all fear based.

It was like socialism, fear of, you know, just go through the list.

But anyway, but he didn't.

And I wrote down affordability, housing, gas prices, the war in Iran, all these things are things that were that, you know, affect your daily life and the things that he was kind of saying were not about the party.

He was very much talking about Charles Booker.

And that's kind of where he was, where he was targeting.

So for this I do, I think it's I agree with Jared on that.

You know, I said that from the beginning.

I think we're talking Charles Booker, Amy McGrath.

And it's solely based on name ID from what they've done, you know, in their previous races and.

>> Go ahead.

>> Bob Barr lost the first time out against Chandler and didn't pout.

Built a better base, won the next time.

I think he won Fayette County one time in all his races.

So he's won many rural counties.

Well, to make up for that.

And that translated into how he could run state statewide very well.

He was never really behind.

He was challenged, for sure, because people thought Morris would have money, and he was certainly hitting hard.

Cameron had the popularity and the early numbers, but give Barr credit for running a heck of a race.

He will have to address other hard issues, just as everybody else will.

But he's had quite the career and on the rise.

>> Al.

>> I think Craig made a good point in how hard Andy Barr worked.

He was not really known outside the sixth Congressional District.

You know, the TV market and the district are basically overlapping.

He had to get out to about 50 or 60 counties, get known, get people for him, line up contributors, develop a following.

And I know from talking to people out there that he did a good job of that.

>> So now we want to share with you our Kelsey Starks talked with Daniel Cameron post concession speech and asked him about the Trump endorsement that Congressman Andy Barr secured and the impact it had on this race.

Take a listen.

>> Well, what I've said is that America First and Kentucky first are one and the same.

And so I continue to articulate the exact same principles.

You know, the day before that Friday and the day after that Friday.

And my message has been that what is good for Kentucky and it via the America First agenda, is what my hope was in serving in the Senate was to advance that agenda.

And look, I am thankful for the work that President Trump has done and obviously want to continue to see him succeed along with the administration to ensure that whether it comes to, you know, families here or across this great country, people are thriving and that there are economic opportunities for people so that they can not only sustain themselves, but their families and future generations.

>> Okay, so you just heard Daniel Cameron there, Trey Grayson, your response to what he had to say?

>> You know, as I think we talked about earlier, it's it's it's classy, you know, and he's he's in a tough spot.

And as somebody who began a State U.S.

Senate primary, as in the lead and then lost, you know, this is not this is not what he envisioned when he started this race a couple a couple of years ago.

But I think he's it's clear to me that he's trying to say and do the right things, no matter how hard they are.

>> Did he peak too soon?

>> Yeah.

I mean, sure.

Right.

He started in the lead in the polls and he finished in second place.

I think the challenge for him was he had the name recognition he had.

He was the favorite.

I remember talking about this.

He was the favorite.

But you could see even from the beginning, the money raising was going to be a problem.

And, you know, I was talking about Barr getting how did he get out of the sixth district?

Getting around the state, especially into that metropolitan area around Louisville?

I mean, that's a lot.

People think of Louisville as being a big Democratic area, but there are a lot of Republicans in Jefferson County, in the surrounding counties.

And that was that was a good, solid base for for Daniel Cameron, the challenge was, is when he wasn't there, didn't have the money and the organization to remind people, hey, I'm the guy you voted for.

As Bob said four times, you liked me.

And Barr was out raising the money, getting the message, and you could just see it kind of just gradually go down.

And I think we I talked about the strategic decisions.

I think the, the not maintaining the relationships, not getting out and about and going to the Lincoln Day dinners.

You don't have to go to as many in the off years, but you have to keep going.

And if you look at some of the most successful Kentucky politicians in this modern era, it's been the folks who get out and about.

And Daniel didn't do that because he had he has this incredible strength everywhere he goes.

People like him and they respond to him.

And so had he done some of that, he would have been a much better spot.

It would have been easier than to pick up the phone and say, hey, will you be with me again this time?

>> Yeah, Amy, real quick, Andy Barr.

>> Runs all of his races as if he's ten points down the entire race up until the closing weekend, and that's what sets him apart.

That's what's going to, I believe, lead him to a victory in November.

There's a long time between now and then, but that's how he has always ran all of his races.

I think the the battle.

Exactly.

And the.

Battle tested in the sixth Congressional.

Right.

I mean, we've had some very purple esque districts here.

And so that has really put him in a position where he knows he's got he can not take any vote for granted.

And so he really did that.

And I think we're going to see that race run very, very hard between now and November.

>> Trey Watson, your $0.02 on the campaign that Andy Barr ran and the one that Daniel Cameron ran.

>> I said last night, Renee, that, you know, I've always said Daniel Cameron was kind of like a NASCAR driver up a lap, but he's got four bald tires and no gas.

He was not going to have the resources to be able to compete with Andy Barr or Nate Morris.

If he had stayed in, he just needed to hold comey Barr just kind of whittled away at him.

Again, I think I get back to is Andy Barr just he's workmanlike.

He does.

He does the job.

He knows what he's got to do.

And he just puts his head down and goes at it.

You know he went out and he got all the The county judges, your state reps and sheriffs and clerks and your local elected officials.

Got all those people lined up.

But he also was able to raise the money.

And at the end of the day, he had the resources available.

I think even without the Trump endorsement, I think the Trump endorsement came because Barr was starting to pull away from the.

So yeah, I think it would have happened even without Trump.

But with Trump obviously made the night a lot, a lot earlier and a lot easier for him.

>> Yeah.

So to you, Jared Smith, I mean, what does this look like for possibly a Charles Booker?

I mean, what is his strategy look like going forward if he turns out to be the Democratic nominee?

>> If he well, first of all, Trey Grayson, can you text Susan Lamb and ask where Lexington numbers are because it's getting late.

>> Well, if you had heard, I gave the update about what was going on.

>> Anyway, Booker's hope is that an extremely left leaning electorate turns out in the fall, if you don't like the way the direction of the country is headed, people are going to go out and vote, probably for the opposition party.

Then who controls the Congress in DC and.

But that's good.

That'd be great in any other state.

Unfortunately, this is Kentucky and that's not a winning strategy in this state.

>> Talk about how Dale Romans performed in this contest.

He's looking like he is in fourth place at this particular point.

>> Well, he needed money and he was able to raise enough money for one AD.

And I don't think he really spent all the money he had available.

I think he must not have seen any movement from that one ad.

And he did a lot of these short videos, which a lot of candidates, most candidates in that race did.

But when it came to pay TV, he had one ad and it was a pretty good ad.

He wanted to be Kentucky's version of Joe Manchin.

You know, somebody who could bridge the divide between Republicans and Democrats.

And I thought if he got some money behind that message, it would be a very effective message, more so in the general than the primary.

You know, he and McGrath were going to split the moderate vote.

And Booker has this tremendous following among the progressive vote.

But he in horse racing terms, he came up lame.

>> Jared Smith is that how you would characterize it?

>> I have to be honest.

You know, I think first of all I don't think this is the last we're going to see.

Dale Romans I have it on good authority.

I think he's going to stick around in the political scene.

And I think he's exactly who Kentucky Democrats need.

He's the kind of person that, you know, talks how we talk and talks about stuff like, you know, like normal Kentuckians do.

And when something's wrong, he calls it out.

It doesn't matter which party he's doing it, he'll say it.

And so I think the future is very bright for for Dale Romans, if he chooses to continue this.

He's extremely famous horse trainer, you know.

But immigration is a big issue to him.

He takes a lot of pride that he has immigrants that have worked for him for over 20 plus years and his barns and his stables.

And so unless that issue gets fixed, he's going to still have his nose around in it.

>> So you make it sound like this is his warm up round that perhaps we'll see him again soon.

>> Well, we talked about Barr having his warm up round earlier, and this will be the same thing for for somebody like Dale Romans.

You know, McGrath and Booker started with 100% name ID.

Dale Romans actually had two ads.

He had an immigration ad that didn't air as long, and money was a bit of an issue for him.

But I think now that is the message went out.

And as he traveled throughout the state, the old elected Democrats, the counties that flipped to Republicans, like the old county judge, Democrats and the old county attorney Democrats all flocked to Dale Romans.

He had he had those people at his stops.

I know for a fact.

So I just think he ran out of time, honestly, and ran out of time and money.

And that's that's the name of the game.

>> All right.

Well thank you there.

We're going to leave it right there Jared.

We appreciate that.

Okay.

Remind us real quickly Trey Grayson for those who missed it the first time, why is it taking Fayette County so long to give the numbers.

>> So so Fayette Fayette made the decision to upload everything at once, and they were waiting for one one drive to do that.

And it could be by now that drives in and it's just there's a lot of precincts, a lot of voting systems, and they're uploading it.

But that was a decision they made to do all at once rather than partial.

>> All right.

So you got that the second time around, we hope.

Okay, we're going to take a real quick reset here.

And you're going to watch all the returns that we have so far on your screen in full form for the next couple of minutes.

And we'll be back on the other side.

You're watching KET coverage of primary election 2026.

Stay right there.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] Good evening.

It is 901 Eastern Time.

801 Central Time.

I'm Renee Shaw, and we thank you for hanging in there as we continue our coverage of the 2026 primary election.

You are joining us from our Lexington Studios, all revamped and brand new for this election cycle.

And we're glad to have our studies here keeping us steady here as we bring you a comprehensive analysis of these election returns across Sherman Brown Amy Wickliffe, Bob Babich and Trey Grayson.

And over on the other side of the studio, we're glad to have with us Jared Smith and Trey Watson.

So we've gotten some news in the time that we took a break for you to watch those full screen election returns.

And in the Democratic primary for U.S.

Senate, Amy McGrath is now leading Charles Booker by more than 5000 votes at this time.

>> But the Louisville vote was reported at 17% in.

And all of a sudden it's backed off to 2% in.

And that's why the lead changed, because Booker's going to carry Louisville big.

>> Right.

Any other thoughts about Sherman Brown.

You've got a funny on your face as if you don't believe I'll cross.

>> No, no.

It's the glasses.

I was trying to read the numbers off the off the side look.

>> On your small screen in front of you because no one can.

>> See that.

Absolutely, absolutely.

I was trying to read off of everything else.

It's getting me.

This is the first election where I'm using them, so bear with me.

No, I don't have any any questions on it.

I did find it just interesting as far as pulling the numbers back and that al was talking about it, just kind of putting those numbers up.

And we were talking about earlier with Fayette Knott, you know, just the I think folks are used to seeing that steady stream of numbers coming in.

This is, you know, creates a little question of kind of where, you know, what is the.

>> I want you to give us the county breakdown here.

What we're seeing.

>> The county leader map in the Senate race.

>> They can work on that while we're while you're.

>> Talking, you know, McGrath is carrying a lot more counties than Booker, but they're small counties.

And these are counties Franklin which the Democratic Party has shriveled up and not enough people are voting in Democratic primaries for her to probably win this primary.

Booker is carrying counties with significant black populations.

McCracken, Christian, Hardin, Madison and so on.

Shelby and with Fayette County vote out.

And now the Louisville vote is still 2%.

What happened over there?

We're trying to find out.

>> Yeah, trying to find out still.

Jared Smith, I want to go to you and get your analysis of what you're seeing as we as this shapes up still in the sixth district.

>> With all due respect to Al Cross, I'm going to push back a little bit on Booker's going to carry Jefferson County big.

I think Pam Stevenson and Dale Romans are going to eat into that number a little bit.

So I don't know if I would call it big.

I do expect him to win, but I don't know how much.

And I may be wrong, but I just I just wanted to bring that up.

>> Yeah, yeah.

Thanks for that.

Anyone else at this table have any commentary about the Democratic primary?

U.S.

Senate.

I mean, Trey Watson, you probably have some thoughts you'd want to share.

When have you not had thoughts?

>> No.

>> We don't need your thoughts.

>> You know, I honestly, I'm looking at two things and not even for this year I'm looking at for next year.

I hate to jump ahead elections, but I Charles Booker how he performs statewide and how Aaron Petrie performs in the sixth district.

I think it's going to send an interesting message and maybe play into calculations for Rocky Atkins, decide what he does next year.

If he's.

Progressive candidates perform very strongly in this primary.

What's Rocky's path against Jacqueline Coleman?

You know, just trying to look for things.

We talk on the podcast.

We try to look for look for things that are of interest to us that you might not be in the paper.

Yeah.

And that's, that's one thing that I've found really interesting, just as we look towards the future is how those progressive candidates perform tonight.

>> Yeah, yeah, that's a very good point.

Trey Watson, we count on you for that.

Let's talk about the sixth Congressional District, because we haven't really talked a whole lot about that.

If we can put those numbers on the screen for our viewers at home and for us here in the studio, we'd appreciate it.

Jared, I want to go to you to talk about the contenders in this Democratic primary for the sixth Congressional District.

>> It's apparently.

>> Well, I think what you're seeing is Petrie and Stevenson kind of cannibalizing each other's votes and kind of being able to pull away.

And so, you know, I think, you know, Jimbo is going to be I think he's going to be a strong candidate in the fall.

If he does, if he does end up winning, he doesn't have a voting record for anybody to shoot at.

You know, Stanford undergrad, Michigan Law worked in DC at the Justice Department.

He's got a really great resume.

I think he's going to be a tough out.

I have to be honest.

He's backed by a lot of a lot of the right people.

>> Sherman Brown what's your take on it?

>> I would agree with it.

I think that, you know, kind of what I'm looking at.

I'm getting some numbers coming through.

So I'm trying to trying to.

>> It's for all those who are complaining earlier.

It's all it's 100%.

And so look at your websites.

>> But I think back to what Jared saying, Jimbo being the kind of the political outsider, not being somebody who's run for office before not having that voting, voting record, nonpartisan experience, kind of where he's been in his military background, all of that kind of bringing in, I think is going to be, you know, great for that, for that district.

And in the fact that on the national level, which we haven't really talked about, Democrats are feeling a wave and seeing more, you know, seeing excitement.

We've seen it in the special elections.

We've seen it across the board in all kinds of different places.

So with that enthusiasm gap, other other opportunities there, I think that could be a place to lend a little.

>> Help across the.

>> The Fayette County vote is 62% in on the AP site, and Booker is winning it.

Big 213 47 to 9504.

So that adds more than 11,000 votes to his statewide margin.

>> Yeah, that's 100% on the state board site.

Yeah.

>> Okay.

>> So what kind of margin does he have there?

>> I don't know, I just was clicking to make sure that but he it he's up, you know, he definitely gave him a boost statewide.

That's the number the page where I was.

>> Okay.

So we want to return now to the sixth district and the GOP primary.

And Ralph Alvarado made these remarks a while ago.

Roll tape.

>> But it's just the beginning.

And we've got a long way to go yet.

And I'm still going to need the help of everybody in this room.

The Democrats are targeting this seat.

And so if we think that this is over, it's not I mean, the odds are still in our favor.

But there's a lot of folks out there that are hurting right now in our district and our our country, people that are seeing the cost of goods that are very high, people that are seeing, you know, the cost of housing, very high health care, which is very high.

And that's something that I can come in and help with.

And I think the president has an idea of what he wants to get done and how he wants to address those things, but he needs allies to help him with that vision and advancing the country and advancing our state.

And I'm really grateful to be able to have that opportunity, hopefully, to help him getting that accomplished.

We also have a lot of ideas on securing our border.

Reducing crime in our communities is very important.

Parents want to have the ability to control what their kids hear in their schools, and that's something I felt very big on is parental choice and having sure that our parents can have those opportunities.

And again, health care is the biggest thing.

That's a big passion for me that I know how to fix.

If they'll give me that opportunity.

Many of you know I'm going to be very persistent on getting that done and get get a health care system where people have control.

Doctors have control again, and not the government.

>> So that was Ralph Alvarado, who has a decisive lead over Ryan Dotson state representative, 26.1%.

Dodson has earned to Ralph Alvarado 56.6%.

This is with 93% of the votes counted.

I want to go back to Trey Watson and Jared Smith for probably the last time.

Trey, let's start with you and your thoughts on the GOP primary in the sixth Congressional District.

>> I think that was it was a foregone conclusion before Trump endorsed.

I think that put it over the top.

You know, Ralph Alvarado has been a successful state senator, physician.

He spoke for Trump at the 2016 convention, already had some built in name ID from having run with Bevin statewide.

So he had some name ID outside of just his his former state Senate district.

And, you know, I think he fits the district well.

It's there's just enough rural in that district that it makes it a real trick for Democrats to try to win it.

Because if you go too far to one side, you either lose money and bodies in Lexington or you lose votes in the rural area.

If Amy McGrath can't win it.

With what was an easier district for Democrats after having spent $8.5 million, it's going to be hard for any Democrat to win it.

I expect Alvarado it might be a tighter race than he'd like, but I expect Alvarado to probably five point win or so in the general election.

>> Well, I want Jared to talk about what kind of race that Zach Dembo could mount against a Ralph Alvarado.

And still, could this even turn blue?

>> No, I mean, I think I think Zach Dembo did a good job in the primary, not getting too far left.

So I don't think he's going to have to do anything to kind of overcorrect or come back in during a general election.

He's going to be able to raise money.

He's gonna be able to have funds.

I will be honest, losing Franklin County out of the six, which we can talk about a whole nother show is it hurts Democrats chances in that district, but I think Dimbo is probably the best one to go against Alvarado out of that field.

And in the Senate side, I think Romans would have been the best one to go against Barr.

>> So yeah, well, thank you, Jared Smith Tres Watson, we appreciate you stopping by for a little bit.

You gave us a lot of great insight, and I'm sure we'll be catching up with you again soon.

Appreciate it guys.

So let's talk about let's pick up there about the sixth district race.

If it's a matchup between Ralph Alvarado and Zach Dembo Amy Wickliffe, what do you think?

>> I think that's going to be a tough race.

I still think I give edge to Ralph Alvarado just because he has more name ID.

He's more well known throughout that district because when he served as State state senator, he's already known in some of those districts that were included in the sixth.

I look Zach Dembo I think will be a tough candidate to beat Wright.

Zach Dembo does not have a voting record.

Zach Dembo is fairly clean when it comes to a candidate that you are running against.

Zach has also kind of ran.

I see glimmers, glimmers of kind of the the Andy Beshear take Wright with the selfie videos and kind of the more hokier kind of appeal to people.

But I think voters like that.

And so I think that's going to be a tough race.

But Ralph Alvarado knows how to put together a good team.

He too, is an incredible fundraiser.

He knows where to go.

I think there'll be a lot of outside money that comes into the six, just like we've seen enough money come into the fourth, I think you will see an incredible amount of money come into the six on the Republican side to try to keep it read.

But also the Dems are going to see an opportunity that they'll try.

>> To see.

And we should say that the Associated Press, AP has called it at 9:10 p.m.

for Ralph Alvarado for the nominee for the sixth district GOP.

>> Cook Political Report, the most recent classification of this race as solid Republican.

But when I was talking to their folks in the last couple of days about the fourth and the sixth and the Senate race, I think there was an expectation that they would probably slide it over to more of a likely R. Trump won the district by 15 points.

So it's you know, it's a seat that if you see if it's a blue wave in the fall, this is the kind of seat where you would see a wave.

Both parties know that.

And I think Zembo probably gives the Democrats more reasons to invest in the seat.

The way that Alvarado won pretty comfortably helps the Republican Party will be much more unified because of the way that went out.

He did not go particularly negative on Dotson.

I'm not saying that Dotson is going to be like campaigning door to door for Alvarado.

It's always tough to lose the primary, but you don't have maybe some of those hurt feelings among some of the followers, so that may make it easier to bring the party together more quickly and to unify behind behind Ralph, who is again a, as Amy said, a proven hard worker.

But this this is the race in the fall that will be the most interesting among the congressional districts.

The other the other races, you know, shouldn't be competitive at all.

But this is the one that we'll be talking a lot about in November.

>> And the biggest single factor in that race is likely to be the standing of Donald J. Trump.

You know, if there's going to be a blue wave nationally, it'll be largely driven by Trump's unpopularity.

And this is a district that, while he carried it by 15, he carried the state by 30.

So, you know, and the McGrath campaign was saying in the last week of the race that he is underwater in this state in terms of job approval.

And that certainly means he's underwater in the sixth district.

So Jimbo has been running an anti-Trump campaign more than anything, more than anybody.

And he's just on a pretty good track to keep doing that and make a strong race.

I think.

>> Now the other thing that will help Republicans in this race, though, is the the comfortable win we're going to see on the top of the ticket.

You're going to see that will help.

They'll be you know, there'll be more victory offices organized, more volunteers trying to run that coordinated campaign.

And Republicans will start to benefit from the fact that they're now the majority party in the state.

And we'll see that.

But it will by no means.

This is going to be a this will be a good race.

>> So let's turn.

>> Our race as well.

Yeah.

>> Say it again.

I'm sorry.

>> It'll be an expensive race as well.

>> Yeah, yeah.

Let's turn our attention to some state legislative races particularly.

Let's start in Northern Kentucky.

Some incumbents who we thought might be toppled managed to make it through.

>> Well, yeah.

On the top of the show we were talking about the two kids from Northern Kentucky.

And then we actually and we added the Third Kim from Western Kentucky.

Two of the three kids look like they have prevailed.

So Kim Banta looks like she's down 13 votes.

Now.

These are unofficial results on election night.

So they'll you know, maybe there will be other recounts and things like that.

But it looks like Kim Banta has lost, which is the 63rd district, mostly in Kenton.

A little bit of of Boone to Koch SEEK.

>> And who is he?

>> So coal was a former policy analyst for a couple of social conservative groups in Frankfort.

He grew up in Northern Kentucky, pretty politically talented.

He's young.

I mean, he's the early 30s.

I think Banta is a retired educator.

He was actually the principal at my high school, Dixie Heights High School Go Colonels, and had had first gotten elected in a 2019 special election.

Kim Moser, who narrowly won reelection two years ago, ended up winning actually by a few hundred votes.

Still close, but a little more comfortable win in the 64 fourth district.

I always get them confused.

Thank you Amy.

And then since we talked about the Kim Kim Holloway out West, she did win pretty comfortably.

And so.

>> That was a rematch.

>> That was a rematch with the third candidate in the race.

But Richard Heath, who had held the seat for a decade or so, actually ever since.

And we should acknowledge the passing of Fred Nestler, who held that seat for years, who just passed away.

Holloway upset Heath last last election cycle prevailed over him as well as a third candidate in that race.

And so as of right now, Banta appears to be the only legislator legislators lost.

Although Grossberg is down enough in Louisville, it's probably safe to say that he loses.

But I don't think that race has been.

>> What about district 81?

>> I was going to touch on, because there are a couple others that seem to be in a good spot.

House district 81 with Deanna Gordon over in Madison County.

It looks.

It has not been called yet, per the AP, but she looks pretty comfortable with 99% of the votes coming in.

That was when we were watching closely given the county judge's race.

That's been very intense over there, but also just a lot of.

>> Her flirtation.

She flirted with the Congressional.

>> In sixth, and then she decided that wasn't for her.

And so she went back and wanted to continue to represent the 81st.

But it looks like voters are going to send her back.

I will say House district 91 is where we're keeping our eye on.

This is the open seat that Bill Wesley is leaving open because he ran, is running for Senate.

It looks like that edge is going to go to Daryl Billings this time.

This will be third time's a charm for Daryl.

And so looks like he may be able to eat that out.

Another race that we were paying close attention to, but it looks like no problems here.

House district 24 with Representative Ryan Bivins down in the LaRue Green area.

Looks like he's going to be fine.

Congratulations to Mark Hart House, district 78.

Josh Calloway House, district ten.

Big congratulations to Julie Raque Adams in Senate District 36 and Senator Matt Deneen in Senate District ten.

>> So I want to talk about some of the Democrats.

Let's start with the Senate district 30 I'm sorry.

>> 14 Senate district 14.

That's not what I had where I had you going here.

Sorry, I can talk about that.

>> Real quick.

So because this has been a very contested this is an open seat.

Senate district 14 Senator Jimmy Higdon is retiring.

Multiple people on the ballot.

It's really come down to kind of the top two of Ben Mudd versus Dallas Robinson.

It looks like Ben Mudd has the edge.

Ben Mudd earns the endorsement of Senator Jimmy Higdon.

Kind of a couple weeks before Election Day.

>> So so the Democrat side of that, Sherman, if you're ready, I wanted you to kind of mention that.

>> Kerry Truitt has won, that.

It was only two folks running in that race, but she ran away with that winning.

71% of the votes are in.

They've already called it.

She's got 73% of the vote, up by more than 4000 votes.

Can be pretty hard to kind of come back on in that race.

>> So I want to talk about a couple of the House Democratic primaries.

District 30.

>> Absolutely.

>> This one's got a lot of press here lately.

That's right.

This out for us.

>> And it looks like with the votes that are in Trey alluded to it.

I don't think you can quite call it yet, but it's looking like Mitchell, somebody refugee from Bhutan has is going to win that race.

And that is against, you know, Cassie laws.

And Daniel Grossberg, who is the sitting representative who had his issues.

>> So can you talk to us real quickly about the issues of Daniel Grossberg without going into too much detail, but also the other issues that had one candidate withdraw?

>> Sure.

As far as the issues, you had three brave women that came forward expressed what had happened with them, sexual harassment and other other complaints and accusations.

They went through the process with the Ethics committee that was addressed, and he paid a paid a penalty for that.

During that process, another five women came forward as well with similar stories.

You had the mayor, the U.S.

Congressman Morgan McGarvey, you had Andy Beshear, all asked for him to resign and to drop out.

He did not do that.

>> And the caucus, he had not been able to caucus with the Democrats in the House caucus, had not had committee assignments.

So there was essentially no representation there.

>> That's right.

>> For those folks.

So we see that who the victor is in that race.

Do you know anything about that gentleman who is.

>> Like I said, ran actually two years ago.

Mitchell ran two years ago, a refugee from Bhutan.

Don't know much much about him, but that is a, you know, just the the story there.

But, you know, it wasn't I don't believe it was very close last time.

I think Grossberg kind of ran away with that one.

This, on the other hand, completely different story.

And then Cassie Lyles also ran a strong race.

You asked about the other Max Morley was on the on the ballot but had withdrawn six days ago.

Yeah.

>> So so Pam Stevenson seat Pam Stevenson who vacated that seat house district number 43 to run.

>> Joy McCarty and Robert Lafferty Bell and that it looks like it's still too close to call.

But Bell is up in that in that race.

>> Right now.

And these two candidates are very different, doesn't Mr.

Bell, he's a self-professed democratic socialist and isn't miss McCarty more of the traditional Democrat?

>> I think those are those are fair.

I don't think I think calling her traditional is was when the paper did that.

She took offense to that.

And I don't blame her.

She is not a a I mean, she will speak up.

And I think a lot of people think immediately traditional is fall in line and, you know, and kind of be establishment.

She is worked for on domestic violence.

She is a single mother.

She's got a lot of positive things going for her.

So I think that was kind of a took a little, little tone for her on that.

>> Yeah.

So 51% of the votes and he still has he still has a lead.

Looks like pretty sizable.

But do you think there's more to come.

And she could actually get 58%.

>> 51% of the vote in.

I don't think you can call that one yet.

>> Yeah.

Okay.

Any other races that we need to.

>> Yes.

Fayette County totals being in Anne Gay Donworth wins handily 1200 votes over Jamie Palumbo.

Palumbo ran last time against Donnenwirth, carrying a very popular name in Lexington.

The Palumbo name, especially with Ruth Ann Palumbo, is very long and distinguished.

Service in the house.

Donnenwirth, though strong Family Ties ran a terrific race last time for a first timer, and Palumbo ran a better race than he ran before this time.

So it was it was very strongly done and very strongly won by Don worth.

>> I will say.

We've also now that we've got the Fayette County numbers and we've been able to see how the Lexington mayor's race is shaping up.

And I think, as we all assumed, it's going to be Linda Gordon and Raquel Carter, Raquel showing with, you know, 15,615 votes at this point in time to Linda Gordon's 25,000.

So a little bit of ground to make up.

But, you know, when you look at there were seven people on the ballot, you know.

>> Below 50.

>> Yeah.

So I think that there there may be a path there.

>> And she's a political newcomer.

Raquel Carter, right.

This is her first time running for political office, although I think she served on a planning commission, etc.

that's involved in public service.

>> I did just get some news that I believe the Senate believes that Ben Mudd has indeed won that Senate District 14 open seat.

So we'll watch that come in.

>> Viewers, that Senate District 14 C.

>> Won the nomination.

Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> He's he's won the primary.

Yeah.

>> Okay.

All right.

So that handle all the state legislative races.

>> We won.

We I, you know the.

Brandon.

Smith.

Bill.

Leslie.

>> Yeah.

Senate district 30.

>> Well, too close to call right now.

>> So what's what's out?

>> 5347 is there's about like 20% votes still.

I'm not sure where, but it's Britt.

Smith was up and, and Wesley's caught back up.

And so that's, that's like, that's the, that's the, the only Senate race that's still.

>> Yeah.

Are you surprised that this is where this is right now?

>> Smith has had some bad news over the last couple of days.

There was a report over the weekend that he had lost a verdict of or a business venture and was liable for.

I think it was like $30 million.

Not the kind of headline you want going into the election.

Wesley.

He's been there a long time, and one of the themes we've seen in some of these local judge executive races have been some fatigue with some of the officeholders, and Smith has been in that office for nearly 20 years.

And and it's an odd district because of redistricting.

It is different than the one where he got elected in 2008 and the special election.

And Wesley is from a different part of the district.

So I think it creates some interesting dynamics in that race.

Smith may still prevail, but it's just it's close.

>> Yeah.

So you are looking at a live shot on the other side of your screen of the Charles Booker election night headquarters.

And we believe he is going to make his way to the podium here shortly.

We will join him when he does that.

So it may take a few moments before he's there.

They're showing a video right now, so we will make sure we join that Amy Wickliffe.

>> Another open seat house district 73.

This is open due to Ryan Dotson running for Congress.

It looks like Daniel Konstantopoulos.

Hope I got that right.

Daniel Kaye but it looks like he is going to win that race when the primary pretty handily he was running against Les Yates.

If we remember former House member went to be county judge executive resigned from county judge executive jumped in this race, but just doesn't look like he's going to be able to make it back to Frankfort.

>> So Sherman.

>> Both Kulkarni have won.

We've got that called Nima.

Kulkarni representative in the 40th district, won her primary looks like handily.

I don't think there's any question there.

But in the 48th, this is currently Ken Fleming's district.

Suhas Kulkarni, her father has won.

And this one is interesting just because of the reason that he got in no prior experience, never run.

But when he when he saw a bill that was filed specifically saying that immigrants could not hold office, had to be a natural born citizen to hold office at the state level.

He.

That's enough for him.

Wanted to jump in and take on and go from there.

Immigrated as well from India.

So I think that is a you know, just a. That story is going to be interesting to watch.

>> Okay.

We're going to do a split screen here.

There you are.

There is Charles Booker, Democratic candidate for U.S.

Senate.

We hear what he has to say.

And someone get across a cough drop.

>> We gon be alright.

We gon be alright.

All right.

All right.

How about it?

All right.

So my mom already.

>> Preached a little bit.

>> My pastor is here, so I'm gonna try not to preach.

But first of all, I want to say, how about that?

Kentucky?

How about that?

Kentucky.

From the hood to the from the hood to the that's not just a saying, that's a rallying cry.

It's a declaration.

It's an acknowledgment of our collective humanity.

It's an understanding that together we are unstoppable.

That together we can change the status quo, that together we can end generational poverty, that together we can heal.

Yes, yes.

And oh my God.

So I have my grandma's Bible.

Y'all know I swore in State house on my grandma's Bible.

I keep my granddad's handkerchief in my pocket.

And crystal, you know, I got TJ's dog tag and I got my three bosses up here with me.

And I just want to say, I thank God for the chance to just walk in my purpose.

Yeah.

Now, they often say that faith is owned by one side of the aisle, but we're up here by nothing but faith.

This is faith in action.

And we not using religion to manipulate and hurt people, willing into faith as a power of love to bring people together.

Because we know that mountains still move.

So I am proud to accept the nomination.

I am proud to be your Democratic nominee.

For United States Senate.

To finally replace Mitch McConnell.

[APPLAUSE] We have been on a journey together.

This is more than a race.

This is more than a title.

Oh, it's so much more than an office.

I have no intent to go to Washington to feel good about myself.

This has been and it is a mission.

This has been a journey about family, not just us here in Kentucky, but as a country finding our way back to each other, finding our way back to hope, to love.

There's so much hate.

There's so much division.

So many people are hurting.

And I, I'm doing this because I don't trust politicians.

I don't I don't come from a political background.

I just knew that if these folks make the decisions that impact our lives, we need to be in these spaces.

So I dared to go on a journey.

You've been with me.

We introduced something in 2020, and it's been a little poetic today.

If y'all been watching the numbers, I just got a phone call.

I will return your call, Amy, I will.

But in 2020, we introduced a story Black I was going to say young black guy, I got Graves in my beard now.

A black man from the hood, 35th and market.

Stepping up and leaning into faith to go up in the hollers to tell a story about family.

That's not the political norm.

We've been.

We've made to believe that we're enemies, that our problems are amongst each other, that we should look at one another and point the finger.

All the while we're all being screwed, right?

And because we leaned into faith, we shocked everybody.

They didn't think something like this was possible in a place like Kentucky.

Right?

But it's places like Kentucky that make democracy real.

It's places like Kentucky that show the power of humanity.

Because we are hard working, we are dependable, right?

We are loyal.

We are faithful.

We may not trust the politicians, but when those storms come, we lean on each other.

And it ain't about party.

It's about us standing together.

I knew that you knew that.

The pundits didn't see it, the polls didn't see it.

But we dare to believe anyway.

We didn't win in 2020.

But we didn't stop because Doctor King said the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Let me qualify that.

If we are the arc benders so we can Kentucky became the arc benders.

[APPLAUSE] We cried for justice for Breonna Taylor.

We cried for healing.

When the storms came, we locked arms and stood up in the face of hate.

We kept organizing, providing mutual aid, showing what community is all about.

And then in 22, we made history, right?

I became the first black Kentuckian to be nominated for United States Senate.

I'm taking you on this ride because this means something now in the general.

We didn't win at the ballot box in 22.

Oh, we already won.

You beat me to the punch line.

But we we laid some critical infrastructure because a lot of people have given up on Partizan politics.

They feel like the party structure doesn't care about them, doesn't see them.

A lot of people don't vote.

They feel like, what's the point?

No one cares about me.

I'm gonna just survive.

We lit a spark that inspired people to get involved, to find their voices, to run for office themselves, to be champions for working people.

We kept fighting.

And then I prayed and went to therapy.

And a lot of therapy.

And I talked to my mom because for the past few years, I've been working with Governor Andy Beshear as a director of faith based and community initiatives, and we've done some incredible work.

But I was behind the scenes knowing that we're a part of this movement that is needed now more than ever.

And you all have been working, and I just knew my work wasn't done.

So I decided to stop running from my fears.

It's scary to do this.

I'm putting my heart out there.

I'm not a typical politician.

What you get, this is the real me.

My story is mine.

And to do something this big, it.

It calls on every part of you your mind, your body, your spirit.

I'm a type one diabetic and I didn't think that this moment would ever happen.

I'm honest.

And if you have felt cynical and questioned whether things can change, I have felt that too.

But I did when my mom taught me to do, which is if I wake up, I'm getting back up.

And what I need to say to you all more than anything is thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you for showing what possibility looks like.

Thank you for showing faith in action.

Thank you for inspiring me.

Thank you for fighting back.

Thank you for pushing back against hate.

Thank you for showing the power of love.

Thank you for standing with me.

It's because of your support and your faith that not only are we winning a historic primary, but we're going to win in November too.

[APPLAUSE] So I just want to say this, and I need you to help me spread the good news, because when you got a testimony, you got to tell everybody, you know.

Wright Kentucky is one of the most winnable races in the country.

We are going to flip this seat.

[MUSIC] And when we flip this seat, we are going to flip the US Senate.

And when we flip the US Senate, we're going to lift up an agenda for working people.

We are going to fight to do the work of securing Medicare for all.

We're going to make sure that people have true living wages.

We're going to do the work of grabbing racism at the root.

Oh, they'll zoom in.

Because we're not running away from the bigotry.

We're not running away from the hate.

We're not going to let the wedges just drive us apart anymore, because we have so much more in common than whatever would divide us.

We're ready for this.

So tell everyone you know something different is happening, right?

This campaign is a testament to community.

This is the power of people.

I'm still the underdog.

I'm going to be outspent.

We're winning a primary.

I was outspent in the primary.

This was nothing but people power, right?

Yeah.

And to win a race like this at a time like this in the world, it lets me know that light can still drive out the darkness.

So if you are ready for real change family, this campaign is for you.

If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, this campaign is for you.

If you want the government you pay for to work for you, this campaign is for you.

If you're tired of seeing tax breaks to people like Elon Musk and you want investments in our community, this campaign is for you.

If you're tired of endless.

>> Wars, okay, that is Charles Booker giving his victory speech, the Democratic nomination for U.S.

Senate.

Although The Associated Press has yet to call that race, there's 82% of the votes counted.

It has not been officially called by The Associated Press.

But yet we do have this victory speech by Charles Booker Al Cross.

Bless you, Bob Babich.

>> The line I wrote down as most memorable was this was nothing but people power.

And I mentioned earlier that Booker had no TV ads, but he had some awful, effective short videos.

And he had built this following around the state from the holler to the hood, as he likes to say.

>> Hood to the holler.

>> Hood to the holler.

Yeah.

Well, I think he was doing holler to the hood tonight.

>> How was he?

Yeah.

>> Okay.

And you know, there are people who believe in Charles Booker.

I don't think there's enough of them to win in the fall.

But he is a political phenomenon.

You can't deny that.

>> Yeah.

Any other commentary?

>> Will you talk we talked earlier about it.

I think his his speech as you know, when Barr was talking earlier, when you compare the two, this was not a speech of fear.

I mean, I didn't get any fear out of that.

This is all hope.

This is all trying to be positive.

And that's where he's going to have to go.

And to his point, I think he knows he's the underdog.

He said that he also knows he's got to reach out and find Republicans and some and some moderates, independents to to vote with him.

One of the things that you said and I've been thinking about that is, is he's doing well where there's black population, it's also where there are larger populations, bigger cities.

And I think that's part of it, too, is that the organizing that he's done is why he benefited in the primary.

Is it enough for the general?

That's a whole nother question.

But for the primary, that's what that's what helped him out over these last six years of organizing, right?

>> This is going to be the best night of his general election campaign.

He lost 62 to 30 8 in 2022 to Rand Paul.

Maybe he'll do better.

Maybe he won't.

But there's no way a national money is going to come in to help him out.

There's no way they're going to look at that.

They're going to say, no, we'd rather invest in these other states.

He's going to be on his own again, and he's going to you know, that was a powerful speech, but he's going to lose by 20 points.

>> So let's turn to Bob.

Do you have something you want to add there?

>> Booker is a brand.

He has definitely become a phenomenon, an inspirational, aspirational speaker and a motivator for sure.

But in traditional typical campaign models with no funding and no national input, the momentum is just virtually impossible to establish.

They have to make cold decisions in Washington about where they put money, and they don't put it in to make a point.

They put it in to make a win.

>> Do you think they're going to go ahead?

>> Look, the more the most interesting aspect of his speech, particularly in light of.

Cameron's speech, was the religious nature of it.

I said early in this race that Cameron was running the most overtly religious campaign of anybody who had ever run statewide in Kentucky.

And you saw that tonight.

He is a man of faith.

He practices his faith.

He's unapologetic about it.

And, you know, some people might say he wears it on his sleeve and he, you know, throws it in people's faces.

If you look at it from the other side of the coin.

But Booker reminds us that faith isn't about politics.

It's not about one party.

There are plenty of progressive, liberal Christians who are supporters of Charles Booker, and they may not be that numerous in this state, but maybe his best approach for the fall is to run a campaign as religious as the one Daniel Cameron ran.

>> I hope you're listening, Charles Booker.

I think you got some pretty good advice on strategy there.

We had promised you that we would give you a re-air in its entirety without interruption.

Thomas Massie's concession speech that he gave.

It's been over an hour or so ago now, so here is an excerpt from that.

I think it's about 3 to 4 minutes long.

The entirety will be on our website.

Roll tape.

>> I would I would have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede.

And it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.

In all seriousness, walking out here and seeing all of you has really energized me.

And it has all along.

But why?

Why am I hopeful right now?

Because if you looked at the cross tab in the polling, and I'm sure if we had exit polling, it would show the same thing.

The we have the younger demographic.

We.

We.

>> USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA.

>> You are, you are patriots and you will inherit this country and you will make it better.

And I am hopeful because of that.

Thank you.

We we accidentally I think I accidentally I didn't mean to do this.

It started out as an election and it turned into a movement.

We.

>> Cassie.

Nancy.

[APPLAUSE] Nancy.

[APPLAUSE] Mansi Mansi.

>> I mean, I think I think people, if you're not if you're not tired of politics, if you're not jaded, if you're not cynical.

And so many people are, you know, the people that, you know, want somebody that'll go along to get along.

I've never heard of that strategy, but that seems to be what the voters want.

That's what's been promised to them, but not to young voters.

I mean, we stirred up something.

There is a yearning in this country for somebody who will vote for principles over party.

You all.

You all don't like bullies and you don't tolerate them.

And I love you for it.

You also.

Yeah.

[APPLAUSE] [APPLAUSE] They couldn't listen.

[APPLAUSE] [APPLAUSE] [APPLAUSE] If I'd known, if I'd known this speech, if I'd known this speech was going to be this fun to give, I would have come out 15 minutes sooner.

Look for 14 for 14 years, those sobs in Washington tried to buy my vote.

Yeah, they couldn't buy it.

Why did this?

Why did the race get so expensive?

[APPLAUSE] Because they decided to buy the seat.

And it.

And it got real expensive for him.

Look, they used they used a lot of dirty tricks, but we stayed the course.

We did not.

We didn't bend a knee.

We didn't throw a foul ball.

We didn't do any of those things.

We didn't kneecap anybody.

We had lots of opportunities to try a lot of stuff like that, and we never did it.

We ran a clean race.

>> Hey.

>> And there's, by the way, after 18 months of blacking, of a blackout of not letting me on Fox, they finally let me on Fox today, four hours into the election.

>> Hey.

>> Hey there, there slop there.

Slop is selling.

So they'll keep selling it.

But but listen, I got to watch Fox also for the first time in 18 months.

And there was the president talking about, by the way, while gas is almost $5 and diesel is almost six, they're talking about this big ballroom they're going to build.

And it looks it looks like the Roman Empire architecture from the Roman Empire.

I see a few analogies there, and people are just trying to make ends meet.

But we were promised that Miriam Adelson would pay for that ballroom.

But she.

[APPLAUSE] Hey, they she spent so much money in this race.

They're going to have to reduce the footprint of that thing.

But here's one thing I saw on Fox.

They were saying, oh my goodness.

You know, we're ready for war.

There's about to we're about to restart this war.

We were supposed to restart this war today, but we can't restart this war today.

The war can't start today.

They said we got to wait a day.

And then it like it occurred to me.

Where was the secretary at war yesterday?

He was here.

[APPLAUSE] Listen.

>> Wait wait wait wait.

>> No.

Look on.

Look on the bright side.

>> No more war.

No more war.

>> No more wars.

No more wars.

>> No more wars.

>> No more wars.

>> Guys, knock that off.

You're gonna make me feel good about losing.

>> And that was Thomas Massie giving his concession speech as he lost his bid for reelection in the fourth Congressional District.

We've got about ten minutes remaining, gang.

Let's kind of dissect what we heard there.

He planned to the young people there across.

>> A lot of class.

In that speech, I was I was disappointed.

>> You expected.

>> Something more gracious.

You know, he was ticked off.

He was exercising grievance and, you know, making aspersions at Friends of Israel.

And, you know, started out by saying he had to call Tel Aviv to get Ed Gallrein.

You know, we talked about this race being a test of President Trump's strength.

It was also a test of the strength of the American Israel Political Action Committee and the PACs that it runs.

It is a powerful element in this country's politics.

And when you get that bunch and the president who want to beat somebody, they're probably going to get beat.

And you also have to say that Massie allowed some anti-Semites to hang around his campaign, which was not a good look.

So this campaign, this race, revealed some of the darker underside of American politics.

But you have to say about Thomas Massie that he is a representative who could not be bought, as he said, and was independent to a fault, ultimately to his end.

>> Yeah.

Thomas Massie was exactly who Thomas Massie has always been.

In his speech tonight, I expected a similar speech from him.

Right.

And to be honest, given everything they threw at him with, especially within the last week, I don't blame him a little bit.

>> Yeah, you have.

>> Some of that.

Some of that stuff is really hard.

I mean, it went it was that it represented kind of the worst of the worst in politics, right?

I mean, what we saw thrown at him over the last week, over the last 48 hours, 72 hours, I'd probably be a little bit miffed too.

But he was his own man.

He's not going to change.

We're probably going to see him somewhere else.

Yeah.

>> TBD he's always been like that.

I, Thomas and I are nerds.

I met him in high school.

We were on the Kentucky academic all star team.

We beat Indiana's butt in 1989, and that's just the way he is.

And Amy alluded to the fact that there's some speculation.

And even though he lost tonight, he still given that he went up against the president, United States.

He barely lost this race.

I mean, maybe a little bit bigger loss than maybe we would have thought coming in, but it's still pretty close race.

There's talk of him maybe considering the governor's race next year.

He will obviously have the time, you know, with his term ending.

And so that'll be an interesting decision.

Does he want to go through this again?

He's right about the youth.

All the polling in this race showed a clear age divide.

Younger voters vastly preferred Massie.

Older voters vastly preferred Gallrein.

It's a primary primaries tend to have you know, we have a lower turnout.

Even this year.

We've had higher turnout.

It's over.

Older voters are more overrepresented in Kentucky.

We have an older population.

So that was a tough thing to overcome.

So yeah, he may we may be talking about him next May on election night.

>> Yeah.

So let's talk about this primary, the sixth district primary Zach Dembo The Associated Press has called that.

They called that at 933, he beat Cherlynn Stevenson.

And some have said on the socials Jacqueline Coleman, who got behind Cherlynn Stevenson and Stevenson, you know, didn't you know she didn't do terribly.

But what does this say about Jacqueline Coleman, who has announced her bid for governor next year, if she can't help an established, not an incumbent but established Democrat, do better in a congressional race and a former member of leadership.

What does that say about Jacqueline Coleman?

>> This is something that we like for us politicos, right?

The moment that these endorsements started going around, it was very clear that we were going to have a story to tell on election night.

And we do.

You had Jim Gray, who endorsed Zach Dembo.

You had Ben Chandler, who endorsed Zach Dembo lieutenant governor, did not deliver for Cheryl Lynn.

Now, what that says overall, I think is a little bit to be determined at this point.

I thought that Cheryl Lynn.

She is a hard worker.

I think the mountain Democrat strategy, I'm not for sure how that really played or how that connected in the sixth Congressional District.

I think that if it was more if the sixth district included more of the East right, or the southeast, perhaps that.

But I think that was an interesting choice for a campaign strategy for the sixth Congressional District.

>> Deb Carey, all the rural counties except Scott, which Cheryl Lynn had represented part of, so that strategy just did not work.

>> And some of them like handily.

I mean, it was, you know, to your point, yes.

But I think I think more than anything, I think this goes back to the outsider and folks standing up and talking.

That's what I'm watching for here in this in this primary is just to kind of see.

And I think back to Aaron Petrie we talked earlier about, I mean, I think there's a, you know, looking at this field, there are a lot of people coming out of this.

I don't think I don't think that's the end of Aaron Petrie at all.

I think she'll be she'll be doing something and be around as well.

But Zach Dembo now I'm excited, you know, to kind of look here and I agree, I think this is going to this is going to be the race.

This is the one to get excited about.

>> It's the one we have.

It's going to be the most competitive.

>> This is it.

>> This is the one.

And I'll.

>> Bet you Christie Brown Louisville whiskey Paris will keep on raising money for Zach Dembo.

And she knows a lot of people and a lot of places, so he will be well funded and will probably get some national money.

>> Yeah.

Nulu.

He's humble.

He comes across well, has the military background.

Stevenson led for a long time from everything we could tell, and demo just came up, kept at it, ran a brilliant campaign and is a guy to watch because of that.

>> Yeah.

To your point, Bob, internal polling had Cheryl Lynn had up 2 or 3 weeks out.

She was up.

I mean, it was, you know, this last two weeks is really when we talked about peaking too soon or peaking.

>> Yeah.

It's like.

>> He just peaked, right?

>> She had the name ID.

But then when voters got exposed to both candidates and they learned more about Dumbo, they preferred Dumbo pretty overwhelmingly.

>> Well, I think they like that anti-Trump message, which he just kept doubling down on.

He found new ways to deliver it.

The ads were good.

It was him speaking to camera authentically.

It was just a first class campaign.

>> Political, national level, too.

I think more of the conversation about Israel and the Jewish support for candidates, and how fraught that whole debate about Iran and the Middle East has become.

Mrs.

Adelson, Mrs.

Doctor Adelson is a very prominent leader in that.

And to to denigrate Jewish involvement is discrimination, in my point of view and or anybody's participation.

People are entitled to support their faith, their belief, their goals and objectives.

And so some of the rhetoric of Booker disturbs me.

For a guy who's very sensitive to discrimination, I'm not sure I mean, messy.

Excuse me, it's too late, but Massie's combination of comments were maybe okay for politics, but out of character for us.

>> So in the three minutes we have remaining, let's talk about some 16 judge executive races and some of these judge executives who fell tonight.

>> Yeah, Sherman mentioned outsiders having a good night.

For what we've heard.

Bell County.

Boone County.

Breckinridge County.

Calloway.

Campbell.

Estill.

Fulton.

Greenup Henderson.

Knox.

Laurel.

Lawrence.

Lee.

Madison Monroe and Morgan County judge executives all lost.

Some of them were long standing judge executives.

Northern Kentucky, you had folks running for their eighth term.

Some hadn't been there very long.

There's local issues.

There's statewide issues, but a lot of change in the courthouse.

And there may be there may be more.

And I hope I got all those right, but I've been trying to compile those.

But but 16 in primaries is pretty.

That's a lot.

>> Yeah.

So were these not these incumbents?

Were they not Maga enough?

>> I don't I think these races are probably more local kinds of issues and maybe not so much viewed through the national lens, you know, zoning growth.

>> Growth.

>> Occupational taxes growth has become a big issue in some of the like Madison County, Reagan Taylor was running for a third term.

Madison's grown a lot.

So there's questions about how the way to do that.

I think in Boone and Campbell, those were issues as well, on top of the fact that the judges have been there for a while.

So all these are probably a little unique in their rationale.

>> Yeah.

Amy.

>> I was going to hit on the growth.

I think this is something that I think a lot of counties are grappling with, right?

You want to grow, you want to lure more economic development, but not, not behind my house, right?

Not in my backyard.

And so at the end of the day, who gets blamed for that?

And that really is your true local, local, hyper local issues.

And those are your county judge executives.

>> Technology and AI.

But we don't want.

>> Data centers.

That's right.

Not in your backyard.

>> I also think there's probably still and, and all of these county judge executives, many of which we've known for for years.

But I think at some point you have an electorate who also starts to have a healthy distrust for the establishment.

And I think fresh leadership.

You've been around too long, right?

And I think we're probably going to see that have weighed into some of these.

>> Knocked on my door and he just said to me, the message is simple.

Gary's just been there too long.

Referring to Gary.

>> Moore, right?

Yes.

>> 77 contested races for judge executive in Republican primaries with 213 candidates.

That was the office that was most sought the county wide office in this election.

>> Okay.

We're going to have to leave it there, Sherman, if you can say it in 10s, buddy.

>> We have >> One when they say your vote counts.

In the 44th Democratic primary.

Beverly Chester Burton has lost by five votes.

>> Oh, wow.

And she's had.

>> Quite a.

>> Bit of baggage there.

So we're going to talk more about that.

There's going to be a lot of races that we're going to dissect even further tomorrow night on Kentucky edition at 630 eastern.

530 central of course, comment on Kentucky Friday, the gang will be here to also break down primary 2026 right here in Kentucky.

I'm Renee Shaw on behalf of all the magnificent crew everywhere, we thank you for making KET your choice for election coverage.

Until I see you again, have a beautiful night.