2024 PRIMARY ELECTION RECAP

https://ky22.hereisliberty.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2024-Primary-Election-Summary.pdf

Incumbency is a huge advantage, if you have done at least a decent job and communicated that to your constituents. Only 3 incumbents fell (Southworth, Heath, and Timoney) which is roughly as expected in terms of number, with minimal turnover.

Republican factional numbers won’t dramatically change based upon incoming legislators. There will probably be a net gain of 1 or 2 Liberty candidates in the House and about the same in the Senate. The fact that the numbers WON’T drastically change and that the Liberty movement actually picked UP several seats says A LOT in the face of an absolute torrent of spending by a partnership of establishment Republicans AND the left, manipulation of redistricting to suppress Liberty candidates, and the Caucus Campaign Committees putting their thumbs on the scales.

 

HUGE Night for Liberty Candidates – Exceeding Even Last Election Cycle

Liberty candidates won every race they could reasonably have been expected to win, with one exception discussed below:

  • Federally: Thomas Massie won in a landslide.
  • All Liberty incumbents in the state legislature, of which there were many, won re-election with the exception of Adrienne Southworth who was beaten by another Liberty Candidate, Aaron Reed, in a 3-way race (Senate 7).
  • This Senate race was HIGHLY manipulated by Senate Leadership, from redrawing the district to place Reed and Southworth together and leaving Southworth with only her home county before it even started, to backing GALLREIN with tens of thousands of dollars against both Reed and even against a member of their own caucus.
  • Doan, Proctor & Massaroni not only proved that their wins last session weren’t flukes, they won reelection in landslides.
  • Rawlings moved over to the Senate (a really good fit for him, I think) and in effect won a landslide referendum vote as well.
  • Maddox, Calloway, Huff & Truett won in blow-out fashion.
  • Rabourn & Wesley won more narrowly against very well-funded opposition that substantially outspent them. Still excellent results.
  • On a Louisville local level, Crystal Bast in Metro Council 14 and incumbent Marilyn Parker in Metro Council 16 won quite comfortably. Ryan Thompson lost, but to a solid conservative in Jonathan Joseph.

– A few other Candidates, Asa Waggoner & Julia Jaddock, and a bit more loosely liberty-vetted Tom Ballinger and David Pennington, lost races they were not expected to ultimately win (either in the primary or the general), but did move the conversation to the right and perhaps set themselves up for future runs.

 

True Surprises in terms of margin:

  • TJ Roberts (open seat, against a former legislator) and Thomas Jefferson (vs the most socially liberal Republican in the house) ran exceptionally expensive races with massive outside spending (mostly against them) and won landslide victories. Both races got very personal and ugly. Although I personally expected both to clearly win based upon race feedback, the margin of victory was definitely a positive surprise, both wining by around 45%!

– I did not feel very optimistic about Kelcey Rock or Lynn Bechler knocking off incumbents with long family names/ties in their districts as the races progressed, but their margins were larger than I expected, even factoring in the secondary reasons for high turnout in the Meredith race. The Caucus Campaign Committees, a corrupt carve-out in the law, got heavily involved in both.

 

The biggest negative surprises for the establishment:

  • Kim Holloway knocked off the sitting House Ag Chairman (and Graves County party chairman) Richard Heath in a heavily Ag centric district, mostly through sheer force of will.
  • Karen Campbell ALMOST knocked off Kim Moser, Chair of House Health Services, despite a massive spending disadvantage, losing by less than 100 votes (84 at last count).

Both of those races should have sent a LOUD message, as should the failure of a mountain of money in all of these races (by one accounting, over $1.3M) and partnering with the left-wing JCTA (Better Schools KY) to translate into ANY electoral success against Liberty Candidates.

 

THERE ARE SEVERAL TOUGH GENERAL ELECTION BATTLES UPCOMING, FINISH THE RACE!

A near miss of winning a tough primary only to lose in the General is gut-wrenching. Remember, a few Liberty Candidates had no primary but tough Democrat opposition in the General. There are also a couple of legitimately conservative candidates who will be looking to knock off Democrat incumbents and who will need all of the help they can get on that mission.