Trail to ‘23: Craft focuses on ‘border crisis’ in new ad, Cameron drops polling numbers

This is the first in an occasional Herald-Leader series, Trail to ‘23, to catch readers up on all the latest from this year’s crowded governor’s race. There are more than 100 days until the May 16 primary that will decide who among several GOP candidates will take on presumptive Democratic nominee Gov. Andy Beshear.

Cameron’s poll: For observers eager to get a read on the crowded GOP field for governor, Attorney General Daniel Cameron dropped some news on Friday: his campaign has a poll that shows him up 31 points over the alleged closest competitors, Commissioner of Agriculture Ryan Quarles and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft. Cameron’s team commissioned the GOP-aligned firm Meeting Street to conduct the poll, which reached 500 “Republican primary voters.” That sample size puts the poll’s margin of error at a little over four percentage points.

Cameron, the poll claims, has 81% name ID, and 62% of GOP primary voters view him favorably. The poll does not mention what percentage of respondents have heard of the other candidates, but it does have favorability ratings for them: Quarles is at 28%, Craft is at 22%, Auditor Mike Harmon is at 17%, Eric Deters is at 10% and Somerset Mayor Alan Keck is at 7%.

Notably, the poll says that 38% of the respondents are undecided.

University of Kentucky political science professor D. Stephen Voss noted that campaign polls can be biased, though he said he “mostly expects” Cameron’s lead is real.

“But: Cameron’s lead likely reflects his name recognition, which is the kind of advantage that erodes quickly when facing opponents with enough money to get their own message out. The large number of undecided respondents shows that the current percentages are soft and vulnerable to shifting rapidly,” Voss said.

The role of polling will be a trend to track as the race continues. So far, no national polling firm has released results about the GOP primary, but this is the second from Team Cameron, which clearly wants to carve out a narrative space as the frontrunner by releasing such polls. Some have speculated that the first poll helped Cameron score an endorsement from former president Donald Trump, who’s becoming even more controversial in his post-presidency but still won Kentucky by a huge margin in 2020.

Bowling Green, Breonna Taylor, candidate backs out of a controversial event: The Bowling Green-based Republican Women’s Club of South Central Kentucky set off a news cycle of their own this month when they billed an event with two speakers: Quarles and the controversial ex-cop Jonathan Mattingly, who was one of the Louisville officers who shot Breonna Taylor in a police raid that killed her in her home.

After an online backlash against Quarles for his attendance, the gubernatorial hopeful backed out of the event. But that wasn’t the end of the story.

The group continued on with Mattingly, hosting him at a restaurant where they played footage of events shortly following Taylor’s death. The footage was played at the venue unbeknownst to some restaurant-goers who took major issue with the fact that their meal was interrupted by Mattingly’s presentation to the club.

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Kentucky’s ‘border crisis’?: Another two weeks have passed, and now Craft has a third television ad out. The focus of this one? The southern border crisis. Craft wasn’t talking about the Volunteer State, though. The gubernatorial hopeful actually went down to the U.S.-Mexico border to get some shots of her next to portions of the border wall – a top priority of Trump, her former boss.

“Joe Biden and Andy Beshear are ignoring the border crisis,” Craft said while standing in front of the wall. “But it’s not just down here. Right here in Kentucky, we have our own border crisis: criminal and illegal drugs like fentanyl are flooding into our state, ravaging our communities.”

“And if you’re a drug dealer, I’m coming for you,” she added.

The ad builds off of a key issue in Craft’s campaign thus far: Kentucky’s drug crisis. Craft introduced her concerns about the crisis in an earlier ad. More on that later. It drew some teasing from accounts on Twitter, facetiously warning of grave consequences of Tennessee and Indiana border crossings.

It seems very likely that Craft will have the fundraising advantage throughout this primary, given her access to immense wealth through her husband Joe Craft, a billionaire coal magnate and philanthropist. She’s expected to continue to release television and radio ads throughout the cycle.

Here’s the complete list of candidates running for Kentucky governor in 2023

Craft’s fentanyl ad: A controversy ensued in the wake of another Craft ad that bemoaned the drug crisis’ effect on Kentucky families.

“As a mother, this is personal to me, because I’ve experienced that empty chair at my table,” Craft said in the ad.

Though somewhat mum in response to initial inquiries about who the candidate was referring to by the “empty chair,” Craft told LEX18 that the person was a living family member who struggled with addiction.

Critics pointed out that many interpreted the “empty chair” as a reference to a lost loved one.

“If you tell me — if you tell anyone — there is an empty chair at your table, every human being on the planet knows what you mean. You mean someone important to you died,” Teri Carter wrote in a Herald-Leader opinion piece.

Cameron and Quarles have also honed in on fentanyl as a major talking point in their campaigns. Cameron’s office formally urged president Joe Biden to declare the drug a “weapon of mass destruction.”

The Fox News wars: America’s most popular cable news network has kicked off its coverage of Kentucky GOP candidates’ bashing Beshear – who continues to perform well in favorability polls – and the Democratic party in advance of the 2023 primary.

Quarles was the most recent beneficiary of coverage from the conservative media channel’s digital wing, coincidentally talking about the same issue as Craft: illegal drugs.

“I think the disconnect between Andy Beshear and those families that have suffered through this is his unwillingness to address the issue,” Quarles told the network. “He occupies the most powerful office in our state. If I was governor, I would call Governor [Greg] Abbott down in Texas and say, ‘What can we do to help?’ Because we know that the fentanyl is coming through the porous Mexican border.”

The national conservative outlet appearance worked as something of a contrast to Quarles’ strategy thus far, focusing on the power of local political machines. This month, his campaign released a list of more than 200 local Kentucky officials who have endorsed his campaign. That list included 40 current and recently retired county judge-executives.

Cameron, in his appearance, took a swing at what he perceives as Democrats’ condescension towards Black Americans.

Craft stayed on message with hits on Fentanyl and international affairs in her wide-ranging interview with the outlet. Meanwhile, in contrast to other candidates, Craft has been less open with the Kentucky press corps. Her team cut off questions from the media after just two minutes in Craft’s first Frankfort press availability.

The former ambassador picked up some support via Twitter from Franklin Graham, a prominent and sometimes controversial evangelical leader, in response to her Fox News appearance. Franklin is the son of Billy Graham, one of the most prominent American protestant leaders of all time.

Beshear v. RPK/Cameron on Open records: Fox News Digital also covered a spat between the governor’s office and Republicans, including Cameron.

In a callback to the Kentucky Democratic Party (KDP) rooting around in the communications between University of Kentucky officials and Craft, the Republican Party of Kentucky spokesperson Sean Southard made similar open records requests to the Beshear administration regarding its handling of the COVID-19 crisis, particularly as it relates to school closures. It appealed the office’s denial.

Cameron’s office ruled that the governor’s office violated the Open Records Act, and that it must hand over correspondence between certain individuals regarding school closures and remote learning.

Relatedly, Cameron’s office also ruled in favor of the KDP in its requests for information on Craft and Keck, respectively.

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A must-read newsletter for political junkies across the Bluegrass State with reporting and analysis from the Lexington Herald-Leader. Never miss a story! Sign up for our Bluegrass Politics newsletter to connect with our reporting team and get behind-the-scenes insights, plus previews of the biggest stories.