Daniel Cameron projects strength, adds top McConnell staffer in general election kickoff
Kentucky is a Republican state with Republican values – at least, that’s what Attorney General Daniel Cameron is banking on in his bid to unseat Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.
That was the buzz in Richmond on Friday, where area Republicans gathered in a quiet lunchtime setting to kick off Cameron’s general election campaign. It marked the first official campaign stop for Cameron after winning the GOP primary by 26 points.
Beshear, who coasted to his party’s nomination unlike Cameron who faced several well-funded opponents, launched his general election tour just days after the May 16 primary.
Cameron reflected optimism to the crowd gathered in Madison County, a place that could serve as a bellwether if recent history is any indication. Beshear’s 0.3 percentage point win in 2019 closely aligned with his narrow statewide 0.4 percentage point win in that general election.
Cameron said he thinks more like Madison Countians, and the majority of Kentuckians, than Beshear does.
“You’ve got a governor right now whose vision for Kentucky and whose values are not aligned with the folks here in Madison County and does not reflect the values of the men, women and children of all 120 counties,” Cameron said
Cameron hit the current governor on a familiar slate of contrasting issues, leading with education and transgender identity. Cameron supported Senate Bill 150 – an omnibus bill passed by the state’s GOP majority which banned gender affirming care for trans minors, implemented a transgender ‘bathroom ban’ in schools, and barred any discussion on sexual orientation or gender identity in schools – while Beshear vetoed it. Cameron also reminded the crowd of his disdain for Kentucky Department of Education Commissioner Jason Glass, who rose from little-known bureaucrat to a frequent conservative political target when he suggested that teachers who don’t use students’ preferred pronouns should “find something else to do.”
“A commissioner... said to members of the General Assembly that if any teacher expressed concern about the gender ideology curriculum that’s making its way in our classroom, that teacher needed to find another job. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s not the right answer. The right answer is that Andy Beshear needs to find another job and we will help him do that,” Cameron said.
While Cameron’s political message cohered around a “values”-oriented contrast between himself and Beshear, he also made a viability argument. He pointed to the campaign’s 26-point primary win, which he said left him “pleasantly surprised” and exceeded the margin predicted by pre-primary polls.
“In November, Kentucky is going to have another governor and it’s going to be me,” Cameron told the crowd.
Supporters in attendance are convinced, too.
Michael Douglas – the younger brother of Sen. Donald Douglas, R-Nicholasville, who in 2021 became the first Black GOP member of the Senate – believes that Cameron’s win is assured. He said those close to Cameron, whom he met at the nominee’s primary victory party, speak highly of his ability to win this race.
“I feel confident because of the conservative values and the Christian values that he has. It’s not something he just talks about. I talked to his mother, I talked to his in-laws, and I talked to his childhood friends and everybody said the same thing: this is him,” Douglas said.
New face to the campaign: McConnell’s top man
One of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s top lieutenants officially joined the Cameron campaign this week.
Terry Carmack, McConnell’s chief of staff, is now with the Cameron campaign in a “senior management” role according to Sean Southard spokesperson for the Republican Party of Kentucky. Washington-based news outlet POLITICO reported that Carmack was Cameron’s campaign manager, though Southard indicated that Carmack was taking a “senior management role,” and not stripping that title from current campaign manager Gus Herbert, who held the role during the primary.
“Terry is one of Kentucky’s most experienced political operatives with extensive state and national experience, having previously served as state party chairman, chief of staff to members of congress, and as the political director for the National Republican Congressional Committee,” Southard said. “Daniel Cameron enjoys support from all wings of the Republican Party, from Donald Trump to Mitch McConnell. It’s all-hands-on-deck to defeat Joe Biden’s man, Andy Beshear.”
Carmack has been an entrenched power player in Kentucky GOP politics for decades, with his McConnell ties dating back to the mid-1980s. Since then, he’s been chair of that state party, chief of staff for multiple Kentucky congressional Republicans, and McConnell’s state director for 11 years.
“I’m humbled and honored to join Team Cameron. Republicans across the state are excited to make history this November when we elect Daniel Cameron as the next Governor of Kentucky,” Carmack said in a statement.
Veteran Kentucky political observer Al Cross, a former political reporter who runs the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky, said that Carmack’s involvement with Cameron’s campaign highlights McConnell’s continued grip on the Republican Party of Kentucky.
“(Carmack) has been operating at a high level in Kentucky politics for 30 years, all as a protege of Mitch McConnell,” Cross said. “What more credential do you need?
“It certainly does put the McConnell stamp on the campaign,” Cross added.
Cameron’s ties to McConnell — who, despite winning his most recent election by a wide margin, is unpopular in Kentucky — were a brief point of attack for former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft.
Poll shows tight race & some good news for governor
Cameron and other Republicans have worked hard to tie Beshear to figures like Glass or president Joe Biden, who Kentuckians might see as too progressive.
But Beshear remains quite popular in Kentucky according to all available polling, including a recent one that Cameron himself has touted.
A survey released by Republican-aligned pollster Cygnal – which, despite its partisan affiliation, elections website fivethirtyeight.com gives an ‘A’ rating – showed Cameron and Beshear in a dead heat as of late May, though significantly more voters responded that they would “definitely” support Beshear than Cameron.
With a relatively small sample size for the Kentucky general electorate, 600 “likely voters,” the poll has a margin of error of about +/- 3.9%.
The rest of the poll contains a mixed bag of results for Beshear and Cameron. Beshear’s popularity remains high – about 55% favorable to 41% unfavorable for a net favorability of more than +14 – but Democratic President Joe Biden is highly unpopular. The likely voters surveyed gave Biden a -27.5 favorability rating. Cameron, meanwhile, scored a nearly +9 favorability rating with a larger share of voters having no opinion about him.
One potentially strong data point for Beshear in the poll that’s been less advertised than the Cameron/Beshear horse race number: how Kentuckians believe the state is faring. 46.4% of the respondents said Kentucky is headed in the “right direction” while 40.3% said it’s on “the wrong track,” a much rosier outlook than how Americans feel about the nation — the latest numbers from Morning consult show that 72% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track.
The current governor’s popularity is a reality that Cameron acknowledged in his Richmond speech.
“There will be naysayers out there to tell you that the governor is too popular and all those things, but those things cannot be further from the truth,” Cameron said.
This story was originally published June 6, 2023 at 7:00 AM.
