Ky. Sec. of State Adams honored with JFK Profile in Courage award for defending elections
Kentucky’s secretary of state has been named the 2024 recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, a prestigious honor that annually spotlights local, state and national figures who display “political courage.”
Michael Adams, a Republican, was selected as this year’s Profile in Courage Award honoree for “expanding voting rights and standing up for free and fair elections, despite party opposition and death threats from election deniers,” according to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, which bestows the award.
The award, established in 1989 by JFK’s family, “recognizes public servants who have risked their careers by putting the public interest ahead of their own political standing.”
“President Kennedy’s admonition to put country before self rings true now more than ever,” Adams said Monday. “I’m honored to accept this award on behalf of election officials and poll workers across America who, inspired by this call, sacrifice to keep the American experiment in self-government alive.”
In a state with a Democratic governor and a Republican supermajority in the legislature, Adams has retained across-the-aisle popularity, despite sometimes ruffling feathers in his own party for calling out false claims about election interference when former President Donald Trump lost re-election in 2020, and for resisting his colleagues’ far right flank on controversial social wedge issues
In the November 2023 election, Adams was the highest vote-getter on the ballot, capturing 61% of the vote.
He called the choice of his fellow Republican, Daniel Cameron, to hinge a gubernatorial campaign on anti-transgender rhetoric a “sideshow attraction.”
“This is an era when, right now, politics rewards people who embarrass their constituents,” Adams said in an interview with the Herald-Leader Monday. “The incentives are that we don’t reward people who are statesman-like (or) who solve problems.”
Part of why Adams says he is particularly “honored” is because the JFK Library Foundation “recognizes that we need problem solvers, that we need to reward people who do the right thing.”
Adams, first elected in 2019, has advocated for increasing absentee voting access and opportunities for in-person voting, beginning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The award noted this, saying, “as he advocated for this legislation, Adams knew it was deeply unpopular with much of his party, but he persisted and faced primary challenges from candidates who embraced voter fraud claims.”
Adams said his approach to debunking election fraud myths and expanding voting access has been simple: walk people through the step-by-step process, beginning with what election clerks do to make sure polling places and voting machines are secure, and why early and absentee voting are just as secure methods of casting ballots as in-person voting is on Election Day.
“That, to me, is the thing I’m proudest of,” he said Monday. “I got people to listen, and I did it just by going out there and being fact-based and rational and just walking people through how we do it.
“And they believed me.”
Adams has perhaps gained most of his notoriety for remaining outspoken on the security of state elections, despite a swell of backlash from some in his party that mass fraud lost Trump a second term as president.
“There’s a lot of irresponsible chatter out there and demagoguery about us having hacked elections,” Adams said in a 2022 Spectrum news interview. “It’s all hogwash.”
Adams will be honored at a formal ceremony at the Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston on June 9.
Past award recipients include former President Barack Obama, late civil rights activist and former U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Alabama, former President George H.W. Bush, former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah.
