Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) endorsed Matt Bevin (R) for Kentucky governor, but when asked later if he was backing Paul in his bid for the presidency, Bevin refused to say, the Louisville Courier Journal reports.
Said Bevin: “At this point, I’m running for governor and that’s what my focus is on. I am delighted that Rand is running, I have made very clear that I’m a supporter of that idea. I’m running for governor, I have made no endorsement whatsoever.”
A new SurveyUSA poll in Kentucky finds Jack Conway (D) with a small lead over Matt Bevin (R) in the race for governor, 45% to 42%, with 13% of voters still undecided.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Matt Bevin (R) “are trying to put last year’s ugly Senate primary behind them,” Politico reports.
“McConnell, the Senate majority leader, will hold a fundraiser for Bevin, the GOP nominee in this November’s Kentucky gubernatorial race.”
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Kentucky finds Matt Bevin (R) leading Jack Conway (D) in the race for governor, 38% to 35%.
James Comer (R) conceded the Kentucky GOP gubernatorial nomination to Matt Bevin, solidifying the Bevin-Jack Conway (D) match up to replace outgoing Gov. Steve Beshear (D), the Lexington Herald Leader reports.
Presumptive Kentucky GOP gubernatorial nominee Matt Bevin (R) is facing a divided party as he prepares for the fall election, the Lexington Herald Leader reports.
“Bevin has clearly tried to begin winning over some of the Republican establishment… But Bevin, as he has since last November, blamed the media for creating a perception that he didn’t support U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell after losing to him in the primary last year. Although Bevin repeatedly declined to publicly endorse McConnell, he argued that he did work hard for the Republican ticket last fall.”
Cook Political Report: “Democrats – and specifically state Attorney General Jack Conway – were the biggest winners on primary night. Conway faced just token opposition for Democratic nomination for this open seat. The race for the Republicans nomination was far more interesting and ultimately beneficial to Democrats.”
“The race for the Republican gubernatorial election went down to the wire and then some Tuesday night,” the Lexington Herald Leader reports.
“After 214,187 votes were counted, Louisville businessman Matt Bevin held an 83-vote lead over Commissioner of Agriculture James Comer, but Comer said late Tuesday night that he owed it to his supporters to ask for a recanvass.”
Matt Bevin (R), “the upstart Kentucky Republican who famously locked horns with Mitch McConnell in a no-holds-barred 2014 Senate primary, is now running for governor. At first, his hopes for victory appeared all but impossible,” National Journal reports.
“But now, days before the May 19 primary, a dramatic turn of events—largely surrounding dueling allegations of domestic violence and accessory to slander between Bevin’s two primary rivals—have left the tea-party-aligned Bevin with a chance at victory.”
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Kentucky finds the GOP race for governor is wide open.
James Comer barely leads with 28%, followed by Hal Heiner at 27% and Matt Bevin at 25%.
A woman who dated Kentucky gubernatorial candidate James Comer (R) while the two were in college said in a letter to the Louisville Courier-Journal “that he was physically and mentally abusive to her during what she said was a two-year relationship.”
“The allegations come as Comer, Kentucky’s agriculture commissioner, enters the final two weeks of his campaign to be the Republican nominee for governor.”
A new SurveyUSA poll in Kentucky finds Jack Conway (D) with small leads over all possible Republican rivals in the 2015 race for governor.
Matt Bevin (R), who lost a Republican Senate primary loss to Mitch McConnell (R), “launched another statewide race Tuesday, this time for Kentucky governor,” National Journal reports.
“Bevin’s unexpected and late entry—he officially joined the race less than two hours before the state’s 4 p.m. deadline—is a boon for the party’s most conservative elements, as it will boost their voice in a crowded campaign. But for the party as a whole, it complicates an already difficult task: preventing the competitive primary from crippling their candidate before the general election begins.”
Drew Curtis of Fark announced he’s running for Kentucky governor.
“A friend of mine inspired me to take the shot. After having deeply negative interactions with a local elected official, and finding out she wasn’t alone in that experience, she decided that the only solution was to run for office. She had no political aspirations, no prior experience, and no idea how to even pull it off. But someone had to step up and do something about it, and she did. And this past November, she won the election.”
“It was incredibly inspiring. Rather than just accept that ineffective government is a way of life, she actually did something about it.”
The Lexington Herald Leader looks at the possibility that Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) challenges Jack Conway (D) for the Democratic nomination for Kentucky governor.
“If Grimes wades into that race, it seems all but certain that her entry would mark the start of the next chapter in the Kentucky Democratic Party’s rough-and-tumble history, dividing a party that is already in the midst of a soul-searching journey and reopening divisions that Democrats hoped had been healed by their collective disdain for Mitch McConnell, who is about to become U.S. Senate Majority Leader.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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