Time now for our Reporter's Notebook segment.

I'm Emily Sisk, and I am here with Ken Hornbeck of Link Nky, and he is here to break down some of the most highly contested primary races in Northern Kentucky.

Ken, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

So we have to start off with the fourth Congressional District, which that spans all the way from northern Kentucky down to near Louisville.

This has actually been called I've seen it called the nation's most watched primary.

You've got incumbent Republican Thomas Massie and his challenger, Ed Garin.

Tell me more about this race and why does it have so many eyes on it?

Well, it's a really fascinating race, not only locally but nationally.

Thomas Massie has been a lightning rod of sorts lately, especially if you're on the more conservative side of things.

He's bucked a number, President Donald J. Trump's legislative agenda.

Parts of his legislative agenda.

He's really kind of been a thorn in the president's side.

So Trump and his surrogates wanted to primary Thomas Massie.

They selected Add Gal Ryan, former Navy Seal, last October.

Is there any indication of how persuasive or how valuable a Trump endorsement is in Northern Kentucky?

Well, it's certainly valuable, I would say, in previous primaries, Thomas Massie has overwhelmingly blown out his opponents.

He's won by significant margins.

A Quantum Insight poll published on April 9th had Edgar Ryan at, I believe, 37% to Thomas Massey's 46.

Now Massie is still in the lead, but that's a significantly smaller margin than what his previous primary opponents have been able to put up in the past.

And how active have Massie and Ryan been on the campaign trail?

Have they debated one another?

No, they have not debated.

I actually covered an event up here in Northern Kentucky about two weeks ago, and the event was advertised as a forum for both Thomas Massie and Ed Ryan.

However, when I arrived at Gal, Ryan was not present.

So it kind of turned into a Thomas Massie event.

Now, people have accused Ed Goring of ducking events with Thomas Massie specifically.

And I actually reached out to the Ed Ryan campaign during that event.

I did not get any clarification on whether he was simply invited to the forum and chose not to go or if he formally declined the invite.

I know he was.

He took the stage when President Trump visited Northern Kentucky last month.

But we'll keep our eyes out to see if we ever do get a debate between Massie and Paul Ryan.

I want to move now to some of the state House races in Northern Kentucky District 63.

The incumbent right now is Republican Kim Banta.

Now she has two main primary challengers.

And of course, district 63 is part of Boone and Kenton counties.

What can you tell me about that race and any key issues there?

Right.

So Kim Banta was first elected in 2019 after years and years and years in the Kent County School District as an administrator.

Her main challenge is coming from coal Cusick and Seth Winslow Young.

Cusick is challenging her from Banta, right?

So he's more of a ideological conservative.

He's also a former Thomas Massey staffer.

He's also a proponent of eliminating the state income tax.

So he's really conservative on a lot of issues.

On the other end, we have Seth Winslow Young, a former college football player, kind of a new entering.

He's a new player in politics, essentially, and he's described himself as very conservative.

Some of the issues that he's brought up is the elimination of fentanyl being trafficked.

Both of them are challenging, I would say incumbent Kim Banta from her.

Right, and she's going to be in for a tough race, I would say.

And then you have House district 69, which is also part of Boone and Kenton County.

The incumbent there, Republican Steven Doan, he's a bit more of a newcomer, came in in 2023 and his main challenger being Jesse Foreman.

Again, what can you tell me about that race?

Right.

Steve Doane, former Erlanger city councilman.

He's also an attorney in Erlanger now.

He's the incumbent.

He's a very conservative guy.

He's marketed himself that way.

And his challenger, Jesse Foreman, is an NFL agent, which is a pretty interesting career.

And also an attorney and some of what I've gathered for this race is that Jesse Foreman believes that Steve Doan conducts himself in a way that is not representative of getting stuff done for his district.

He's accused him of pontificating and grandstanding.

Interesting.

And you know why I want to look a bit more on the local level?

A race that has a lot of northern Kentucky talking is the Boone County Judge executive seat two main, you know, Republican primary candidates there.

Tell me about that race.

And again, why is this one drawing so much attention?

This is perhaps the most consequential judge.

Executive.

Primary Republican primary in northern Kentucky in quite some time.

So the incumbent, Gary Moore, longtime judge executive, first elected in 1998, and he's really overseeing the transformation of Boone County, not only economically but also demographically.

The county has exploded in population over the past 25 years, essentially the entirety of his tenure.

Now, on the other hand, his challenger, Chet Hand, is a more recent upstart candidate and is very ideological, and he's marketed himself as a younger, more upstart candidate, as opposed to Gary Moore, who is in his 70s and has been in that seat for a really long time.

But this has a lot of people talking to Chet and has been hitting the campaign trail hard, and Gary Moore has actually had to campaign probably harder than he ever has to maintain his seat.

Very interesting.

Lots of complexities there.

And so much to keep our eyes on before we get to May 19th, just a few weeks away.

But we'll keep track of all of this.

Ken Hornbeck with Link Inc, why thank you so much for giving us the scoop.

Thanks for having me.