Turning to state legislative races, it's clear the GOP will hold on its supermajority in Frankfort.

That's because many of the seats up for election this year aren't being contested by Democrats.

Our Mackenzie Spink caught up with Louisville public Media journalist Joe Sarkar about why so many Republicans will be unchallenged and what to expect from the primaries this spring.

According to the secretary of State's filings, no Democrats filed to run in 42 of the 80 House districts currently served by Republicans.

And in the Senate, half of the 18 GOP held seats have no Democratic candidate.

Louisville Public Media published an article going into detail about the candidate filings.

Coauthor Joe Sankar says the number of uncontested seats reflects the previous 2024 election cycle.

Democrats have had a hard time recruiting candidates to run in mostly rural areas where they don't have a great chance of winning in their districts, said Trump.

Won by very large margins, their margins that their districts that Democrats have not done well in over the past decade.

So they tried to recruit more.

But it's a difficult task when you have a lot of factors going against you.

And and one of those factors, as you get lots of mailers saying terrible things about you and all these PACs so that it's, it's a disincentive for a lot of Democrats to run for those offices.

Sankar says the way incumbent candidates vote on bills in the General Assembly could reflect whether or not they're facing contests.

In the May primary in.

Northern Kentucky, Representativ Kim Banta, they are they're both facing primary challenges, and sometimes they've faced heat from, some in the conservative base.

And Kentucky for not being aggressive enough on, like, social issues.

So the fact that they have primary challengers may, be a pressure on them, when it comes to any type of, more social conservative legislation, whether it's related to, or trans issues or LGBT rights issues.

There will be some rematches of close call primaries from 2024.

One of those is Representative Kim Holloway seat in western Kentucky.

She had the biggest, probably the biggest upset of the 2024 primary season where she defeated longtime incumbent, Representative Richard.

He, too, was chair of the Agriculture committee in the House for years, and not many people saw that one coming.

But she won a very, very tight, primary.

And this year, Heath is running for that office again, trying to take it back.

Some Louisville Democrats are facing primary challenges as well, including representative Beverly Chester Burton, who has been arrested twice on DUI charges.

Representative Daniel Grossberg, who's, served a couple terms in the House.

He's also faced a lot of criticism from within his own party and an ethics investigation related to his, alleged behavior with women while in office.

He is facing three different Democratic, challengers in that race.

There are nine Democratic incumbents left unchallenged in this year's election as well, in primarily blue urban districts.

For Kentucky edition, I'm Mackenzie Spink.