A seismic shift in Northern Kentucky politics took place on May 17 when three incumbent Republican state representatives were defeated in their primary elections.
Reps. Adam Koenig (R-Erlanger), Sal Santoro (R-Union) and Ed Massey (R-Hebron) – all influential committee chairmen in the Kentucky House of Representatives lost their seats to challengers who campaigned to the candidates’ political right.
With Erlanger city councilman Steve Doan knocking off Koenig and political newcomers Marianne Proctor and Steve Rawlings defeating Santoro and Massey, respectively, the question arises: could Democrats possibly be more competitive in these and potentially other districts?
Rocky Adkins, a senior adviser to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and a former state representative, said he thinks that voters will want more middle-of-the-road candidates with a “common-sense approach” come the fall.
“I don’t think there’s any question that it helps our chances,” Adkins said. “I think you’re gonna see that more moderate Republicans and Democrats join forces as we move into the November elections.”
He thinks that voters will want to focus on good policy, which he said is consistent with the state’s economic momentum.
“I think people will want more certainty as we move on, the majority of people do, and I think you’re going to see that trend, not only in Northern Kentucky, but I believe you’ll see that trend across the state,” Adkins said. “I really do.”
Doan advanced to face Democrat Chris Brown in the 69th House District while Rawlings will compete against Democrat Tim Montgomery. Proctor has no Democratic foe in November.
Will redistricting come back to hurt the Republicans?
The day after the May 17 primary, the Scripps Howard Center held a “Post-Primary Checkup” as part of its NKY Forum series. Moderated by Northern Kentucky University Political Science Professor Ryan Salzman, the event dug into the primary election outcome. The event had two Republican panelists, former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson and Kenton County Republican Party Chair Shane Noem. It also included two Democrats: Marisa McNee, the former deputy executive director of the Kentucky Democratic Party, and Col Owens, the former chair of the Kenton County Democratic Party.
Among the many topics was redistricting. Every 10 years, Kentucky redraws its district lines after the U.S. Census. The state’s six U.S. Representatives and 138 state legislators come from designated districts drawn by state lawmakers. Currently, Republicans hold five Congressional seats, with the lone seat going to the Democratic-leaning Louisville area. Republicans also have a supermajority in the state House (75-25) and Senate (30-8).
When the Republican supermajority redrew the districts earlier this year, they sought to strengthen Republican control of the legislature further. One district that appeared to be targeted was the 65th, represented by Democrat Buddy Wheatley of Covington.
Under the new maps, Wheatley lost the very urban, northernmost part to the previously more suburban 63rd District represented by Kim Banta (R-Ft. Mitchell). Other parts of Covington, particularly its eastern neighborhoods along the Licking River, shifted from the 65th to the 64th, represented by Kim Moser (R-Taylor Mill).
The 65th now includes more suburban parts of Kenton County and Wheatley faces Republican challenger Stephanie Dietz in November.
“There really was greed in trying to smash Buddy Wheatley’s district to try to make that a tougher race for him,” McNee said at the forum. “I think that they had to move some things around in Kenton County in order to make that happen, and you saw somebody go down last night on their side of the aisle. That may have been a surprise.”
McNee was referencing the geographic impact to the 69th District, which Koening has represented since 2006. While the district still stretches along Dixie Highway on both sides of the Kenton-Boone county line, Koenig lost precincts in the Ft. Mitchell area where he had previously been strong. Those precincts are now part of the redrawn 63rd represented by Banta.
With the districts shuffling around so much ahead of the primary, voters simply didn’t know who the incumbents were, according to McNee, which meant they had a lot of ground to make up in a short time after the end of the long legislative session. The 60-day session ended in mid-April, giving the candidates only a month to campaign full-time. The challengers were able to campaign far in advance.
“In my opinion, six years from now, we could be looking at three Democrats in Northern Kentucky, in that northern part of the district, depending on how things go with what I would call the fringe wing of the Republican Party,” McNee said.
Republican Noem disagreed. He said the conversation for Democrats should be that they didn’t field a candidate in 47 out of 100 House districts in Kentucky and 11 of 19 Senate races. In Northern Kentucky, Democrats didn’t field a challenger in the 60th or 78th District. He also noted that Republican voter registration increased ahead of Democrats.
Noem noted that Kentucky could be a Republican-majority state soon as it relates to the state’s voter rolls. (Though Kentucky is considered a “red” state because of its Republican tendencies in federal elections, Democrats still narrowly outnumber Republicans on the rolls.)
Data released from Secretary of State Michael Adams showed that from April 1 through April 18, when voter registration closed in preparation for the primary election, Republicans increased their voting base by 1,903 with 1,599,306 registered voters, or 44.9 percent of the electorate. Democrats still have the electoral advantage, however, with 1,618,801 voters, or 45.4 percent. They only increased their voting base by 479 during this period, however. Other political affiliations account for 9.6 percent of the electorate, with 342,986 registered voters, and those registrations increased by 275 voters.
Noem also said it’s healthy for parties to have these types of debates or disagreements between candidates and figure out what is the right Republican message.
“But at the end of the day, every one of the candidates that won and every one of the candidates who lost yesterday, they all stand for life, they stand for lower taxes where appropriate and fiscal responsibility,” Noem said.
Politicians gear up for general election
The Memorial Day Weekend brought parades to several Northern Kentucky towns, and politicians were quite active as they looked to earn votes ahead of the general election in November.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Charles Booker, who is running against two-term incumbent Republican Senator Rand Paul, was at the Bellevue/Dayton Memorial Day Parade.
“The reality is that NKY has become a necessary part of the winning ‘triangle’ for Kentucky Democrats,” said Crimson MacDonald, chair of the Campbell County Democratic Party. “Lexington and Louisville are no longer strong enough to pull a statewide candidate over the finish line. Booker, like Governor Beshear, needs NKY to win his race.”
MacDonald noted that Booker wants to know the people of the area, and he also attended Fort Thomas’s 4th of July Parade last year. But having a well-known candidate like Booker, who narrowly lost the Democratic primary in 2020’s U.S. Senate race, attend these events can help local candidates build infrastructure and, in some cases, raise money.
“We do hope that he will show a side of the Democratic Party that NKY needs to see, making them more comfortable voting Democrat,” MacDonald said. “We obviously hope this helps the down-ballot candidates, especially in Campbell County where our emphasis while recruiting candidates was to recruit candidates that were running to bring decency and dignity back to Frankfort.”
MacDonald lamented the loss of three Republican incumbents to primary challengers who characterized themselves as more conservative.
“I was sorry to see some of those incumbents lose when they were some of the only ones willing to work across the aisle and to work in a bipartisan fashion,” she said. “So in that regard, it’s a loss for the Commonwealth, as it will only polarize our legislature more in the next session.”
Kentucky Democratic Party Chair Colmon Eldridge believes that this could open up the opportunity for moderate Republicans and Democrats to work together to combat more extreme candidates.
“I look forward to reaching out to them, and if there is a way for us to come together and work together, not just as Democrats and Republicans, but as Kentuckians, I am all for it,” Eldridge said.
This article has been corrected to identify Crimson MacDonald as the chair of the Campbell Co. Democratic Party. A previous version identified her as Republican chair. LINK nky regrets the error.