Alvarado tops 6th District fundraising, Dembo leads Dems & Massie sets record
As more candidates have jumped into congressional races across Kentucky, more money has followed.
The three Republicans who filed to run for Rep. Andy Barr’s Central Kentucky-based 6th Congressional District before the end of the recent reporting period on Sep. 30 brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars.
State Rep. Ryan Dotson, R-Winchester, and state Rep. Deanna Gordon, R-Richmond, loaned themselves large tranches, while former state Sen. Ralph Alvarado paced the field without doing so, according to the Federal Elections Commission filings.
Alvarado brought in about $377,000 from his campaign launch in mid-July through September, the highest total of any candidate running for the 6th Congressional District.
Democrats were lead in the latest fundraising quarter by political newcomer Zach Dembo, a former federal prosecutor from Lexington, who raised $289,000 in his first quarter of fundraising. Candidates’ best fundraising marks are often in the first quarter given that many line up donors before their announcement, but Dembo’s total still turned heads in Democratic circles.
Former state Rep. Cherlynn Stevenson raised $135,000 over the reporting period; businesswoman and bourbon writer Erin Petrey raised $65,000; and former Lexington Councilman David Kloiber, a self-funder in previous races, raised $38,000, mostly from his own checkbook.
Greg Plucinski, a retired pharmaceutical executive from Nicholasville, entered the GOP primary race for the 6th Congressional District earlier this month, so he won’t have to report his finances until the end of the year.
To the north, 4th Congressional District Rep. Thomas Massie logged his best fundraising quarter to date as he readies for an anticipated challenger backed by President Donald Trump. Massie has gained national notoriety — and the ire of Trump — for bucking the will of the president with his opinions and actions on spending, foreign policy and the files related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Massie raised $768,000 from July through September. No GOP challenger with Trump’s backing has filed to run against Massie yet.
Elsewhere in the state, incumbent Republican U.S. House committee chairs James Comer and Brett Guthrie continued to raise heaps of cash despite facing no well-funded competition as yet. Guthrie brought in $389,000 and now has more than $1.4 million on hand; Comer raised $239,000 and now has $3.2 million in his account as of Sep. 30.
KY-06 GOP showdown
Alvarado is by far outpacing his Republican competition in terms of donor contributions, but both Dotson and Gordon kept somewhat close to his total by cutting large checks to their own campaigns.
Of the $358,000 Gordon brought in over the quarter, $268,000 came from her own pocketbook. Dotson made a $200,000 loan to his campaign, comprising the lion’s share of the $229,000 he brought in from July to September.
All three ended the quarter with a similar amount of cash on hand: Alvarado had $321,000, Gordon $314,000 and Dotson posted $310,000.
Alvarado’s donor list includes a handful of regional power brokers, people with ties to Barr and one former governor — though it’s not Matt Bevin, with whom he ran as a lieutenant governor candidate on the 2019 GOP ticket.
Ernie Fletcher, one of the few Republican Kentucky governors of the modern era, gave Alvarado just over $1,000.
Tyler Staker, a former Barr staffer who is now leading a political action committee supporting Barr’s U.S. Senate campaign, gave the former state senator the maximum $3,5000 amount. Robert Rosado, husband to Barr’s chief of staff, gave Alvarado $1,000.
Terry Forcht of Forcht Bank and his wife Marion gave Alvarado the maximum donation, as did Lexington developer Brett Setzer, Paintsville GOP donor Bob Hutchison and former Kentucky Medical Association President Neal Moser, who is married to state Rep. Kim Moser, R-Taylor Mill.
Large contributions to Dotson centered around the Winchester area and some came from people in the real estate business. One max donation came from Winchester Dairy Queen franchisee Steven Caudill. Another came from John Pirtle, a prominent realtor in the Louisville area; as a legislator, Dotson championed a 2024 bill preventing cities from passing ordinances blocking landlords from denying housing to a person because they receive housing vouchers.
Gordon’s big contributions similarly center around her hometown. Michael and Charlene Livesay, listed as owners of a technology company, each contributed $3,500 to Gordon’s campaign. A little more than a dozen Richmond area residents donated $1,000 to Gordon’s campaign. Those included Harry Moberly, a retired longtime Democratic state representative from Richmond.
Dembo and Stevenson lead KY-06 Dems
Dembo’s strong start was fueled by a number of high-dollar donations from across the state and country.
In Kentucky, he got a maximum $3,500 donation from Christy Brown, a prominent Louisville donor of the Brown-Forman family, and her partner, former ambassador to the Slovak Republic Tod Sedgwick. Brown is a top national donor to Democratic causes and candidates. Dembo also received max donations from people in the Washington, D.C. area, where he worked for eight years.
Dembo only reported spending about $61,000 over the quarter.
Dembo leads all candidates with cash on hand as of Sep. 30 with $229,000. Stevenson had $154,000, Kloiber had $143,000 and Petrey logged $58,000.
Stevenson garnered donations from many prominent Kentuckians. Being the most established name in Kentucky Democratic politics, having run ads in the district throughout her several tight election cycles as a state representative, and touting the highest-powered endorsement from Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman, Stevenson is seen by most observers as the favorite in the race.
From July through September, a few notable names on Stevenson’s donor list include former University of Kentucky President Lee Todd, prominent Frankfort lobbyist Kate Wood Hall, former Lexington-based state Reps. Ruth Ann Palumbo and Susan Westrom as well as Midway Mayor Grayson Vandergrift.
Petrey, who entered the race just under a month before the close of the reporting period, raised about $60,000 from others and loaned her campaign $5,000.
Eight donations of $1,000 to Petrey’s campaign came from the Washington, D.C. area, where she lived until moving back to Kentucky this year. A Central Kentucky native, Petrey has worked in sustainability and as a bourbon writer and editor in recent years.
The majority of Kloiber’s funds came via a $30,000 loan he made to his campaign this cycle.
