[background noise]

Melissa Harris-Perry: I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. Welcome back to The Takeaway. Today, we're off to the races.

[ringing]

Commentator: They're off in the Kentucky Derby. Simplification on the outside in stakes, and coming down to the wire. At the center is Hampton. Rich Strike is coming up on the inside. Oh, my goodness. The longest shot has won the Kentucky Derby.

[music]

Melissa Harris-Perry: Kentucky is home to more than one long shot. Sitting Democratic Governor Andy Beshear, like Rich Strike in 2022, pulled off an upset in the 2019 race for governor. It was a squeaker of a win for Beshear, who was sent the Governor's Mansion with just over 5,000 votes. It's an upset he hopes to repeat this year. However, Republicans are telling the governor, "Not so fast," and they're putting up contenders of their own, 12 of them to be exact. One of those running to unseat the governor is the state's Attorney General, Daniel Cameron.

Cameron hopes his backing of Kentucky's near-total abortion ban can take him to victory in the Republican primary, and eventually into the Governor's Mansion. The race is closely watched around the nation, and Democratic leaders have dubbed the race priority number one, and hope to recreate the tightrope walk of governance in the state. Republicans on the other hand hope to prove that Beshear's victory in 2019 was just a fluke.

[music]

Melissa Harris-Perry: Joining me today is Divya Karthikeyen, Capitol Reporter at Kentucky Public Radio. Divya, thanks for being here.

Divya Karthikeyen: Hello. Thanks for having me.

Melissa Harris-Perry: As this race for the gubernatorial mansion is heating up, talk to me a bit about the money that's coming in. Where is it coming from?

Divya Karthikeyen: Yes, there is a significant amount of a lot of the candidates, especially the Republican candidates, are raising a lot of money from fundraisers. Particularly there's been a lot of small-dollar donations. Governor Andy Beshear, who is the incumbent governor and the Democratic governor, has raised about $5.3 million, and that's huge amount by the time we have the primaries in May.

He's gotten the backing of huge personalities, some out of state, and also the National Democratic Party, which is really putting its eggs in one basket with Governor Beshear because he is a Democratic governor in a Republican-led legislature right now, where he's constantly tussling with.

On the Republican side, there's been a significant lead reported by Kelly Craft, who is the wife of a billionaire coal magnet, and the former UN Ambassador in the Trump administration. She has been holding a fundraising lead because she has been a prolific fundraiser. She's really in the game, though she's never run for election before. We're seeing donations pour in from everywhere.

Some candidates are mostly loaning that money to themselves, but we're seeing at least Attorney General Daniel Cameron has gotten a fair amount of small-dollar donations as well as contributions from PACs.

Melissa Harris-Perry: If you've got Democrats putting all their eggs in one basket, why are Republicans putting their eggs in 12?

Divya Karthikeyen: Oh, I think for at least Democrats, Governor Beshear is their best bet as a candidate because he has a pretty high approval rating. His term has basically been defined by crisis management. He took office in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic. He's had to deal with the Western Kentucky tornado recovery, the Eastern Kentucky floods, so he's definitely gained a lot of goodwill and popularity, way enough, definitely more enough for Democrats to really put those eggs in just one basket. He's going to be very hard to beat.

The Republican candidate who wins the primary has to be really good. When we have this, usually the situation of such a crowded primary is really we're going to have to keep watching if somebody drops out, if it's going to be pretty competitive. It's also very crowded, so voters are a little bit confused about who to really vote for in that sense. There are three front runners in those 13 candidates, but it's going to be a very tough choice to make for voters especially.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Why do you think the Republicans didn't get together and decide on, for example, having just two or three rather than such a large field?

Divya Karthikeyen: I think a lot of candidates entered the race pretty early, and few entered the race late. A lot of speculation also on former Governor Matt Bevin, who grew pretty unpopular in the state, and who Beshear defeated, possibly making a comeback. A lot of this is really up to candidates to really join in. I think the Republican Party is banking on how popular and how closely watched this primary is going to be.

There are some pretty strong candidates as well, and they're hoping a few would drop off. We recently had a candidate drop off who was on the so-called Liberty Republican side. We're slowly seeing that happen, but it's definitely-- There's been such a renewed interest, and I think Republicans are pretty happy about how much attention this primary is getting, and don't mind about 12 people running.

Melissa Harris-Perry: The notion that this hardline position on abortion might be the key to winning, that seems to fly in the face of what we saw during the 2022 midterms. Can you speak to that a bit?

Divya Karthikeyen: When I spoke to Governor Beshear a few weeks ago for an interview, he basically told me when I'd asked him about whether he would support abortion in all cases, he's gotten very good at appeasing the Republican opinion on having exceptions for rape and incest, at least Republican voters, but at the same time not clearly saying that he would support abortion in all cases, because that could alienate the Republican voters as well.

Now, after the amendment was defeated, now it goes to the courts, and so the Kentucky Supreme Court is basically going to decide on whether there would be a temporary halt on abortion or it is going to be started again until a circuit court sees it. There's a legal battle that's happening, but I think the defeat of the amendment shows that people really thought that the fact that we didn't have exceptions for rape or incest was pretty extreme. I think they really voiced that.

When I reached out to the GOP Republicans in the legislature, a lot of them said, "Maybe we'd consider exceptions for rape and incest in another bill," but they didn't seem very interested in it. I think that is going to be a very thorny issue because a lot of Republican candidates are going to run on making abortion completely legal, which voters aren't really in favor of. A lot of people didn't expect for the amendment to go the way it did. A lot of Kentucky politicians didn't think abortion was a big issue, but it turned out to be, and a lot of them are pretty shocked.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Stick with us. We're going to take a quick pause, but don't race off, because we're going to get into some of the national implications of the Kentucky governor's race next.

[music]

Melissa Harris-Perry: We're continuing our conversation about one of the most closely watched races in the country, the Kentucky governor's race. Still with me is Capitol Reporter at Kentucky Public Radio, Divya Karthikeyen. Divya, let's talk a bit about what this might mean on a national stage. You've talked about obviously how important it is to have this incumbent Democrat reelected, right, that this is where the Democratic Party is seeing it. I'm wondering if the Republican Party sees retaking the Governor's Mansion in Kentucky as a must-win seat.

Divya Karthikeyen: It's obviously going to boost their-- They've just boosted their super majorities in both chambers after the midterm elections, so they're doing really well while the Democratic stronghold is really dwindling, which is so fascinating because Kentucky used to be a Democratic state not too long ago in the legislature, and so the number of Democrats in the legislature is dwindling.

It's going to make a sweeter deal for Republicans when they get the Governor's Mansion, but it's going to be really, really hard. Recently since the pandemic, the legislature has basically focused on really reducing the powers of the governor over time, and basically passing laws that would limit his emergency powers, especially after the pandemic, and so they're trying to take back the power in a way that they don't have to be in the Governor's Mansion in the first place.

Melissa Harris-Perry: That is a fascinating strategy, right? You go ahead and let the other party win. Certainly, they're going to contest it. The notion of drawing back that power, is that something given that you said part of the incumbent governor's current popularity is that he did perform well under these circumstances, are the people of Kentucky interested in seeing that kind of power grab?

Divya Karthikeyen: No. [chuckles] No, and I can give you an example. We're having the very hot button issue of medical cannabis that is playing out in Kentucky. We've tried to pass medical marijuana, or medical cannabis legalization, for at least three years, but the bill keeps dying in the Senate, and the Republican legislature isn't particularly interested about it. What Beshear did was issue two executive orders that relaxed the ban on cannabis. A lot of Republicans were upset about that because he'd used his existing powers that they had not taken away.

They viewed that as a power grab. He tried to use it as a catalyst for the legislature to do something this session, but they were just angry about the fact that they felt that he'd abused his powers and that was a power grab. Kentukians are really focused on getting the legalization of medical cannabis moving forward, especially when other states are talking about recreational marijuana. Voters do not want to really play into the power grab games at all. They just want to get medical cannabis legalized in this case, as in many other issues as well.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Divya Karthikeyan is Capital Reporter at Kentucky Public Radio. Thank you for being here today.

Divya Karthikeyen: Of course. Thank you for having me.

[music]

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.