Democrat Stevenson gets fundraising lead in Kentucky's 6th Congressional District
In the race for money in Kentucky's 6th Congressional District, former Kentucky House Democratic caucus chair Cherlynn Stevenson has gained the lead.
Stevenson surpasses the candidates who have announced so far in cash, with a campaign total of more than $210,000 in two months. That's all from contributions. Stevenson has not loaned her campaign any money.
Congressional candidates were required to submit finance reports for activities for April through June with the Federal Election Commission by Tuesday. The primary election for the seat is in May. The incumbent, U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, is running for U.S. Senate in 2026.
Stevenson's donors include several elected Kentucky Democrats, including state lawmakers Sen. Reggie Thomas, Rep. Erika Hancock and Rep. Adrielle Camuel. Former state lawmakers Rep. Angie Hatton and Rep. Rachel Roberts also contributed to Stevenson's campaign.
Stevenson received a donation from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers PAC this quarter of $5,000.
'As this first round of fundraising reports shows, Cherlynn has real momentum right off the bat and is in a strong position headed into this next quarter,' Jason Perkey, Stevenson's campaign manager, said in a statement. 'We're not taking anything for granted — we have our foot on the gas, and we're not letting up.'
Stevenson's campaign said 77% of the donations were $25 or less, and most of its donations were from Kentuckians. Donations came from more than half of Kentucky's 120 counties, including all the counties in the 6th Congressional District, the campaign said.
Stevenson has raised more than any Democratic candidate in their first quarter in the congressional district within the last decade, her campaign added, including former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath in 2018 and Josh Hicks, a Marine veteran and local attorney, in 2020.
The campaign of David Kloiber, another Democrat vying for the seat, reported to the FEC that he has a total of $138,795 for the quarter. That includes $97,000 in self-loans from the candidate and about $42,000 in contributions. Kloiber is a former Lexington council member and announced his campaign in June.
On the GOP side, Winchester state Rep. Ryan Dotson has garnered about $96,000 since getting into the race.
According to Dotson's filing with the FEC, he received some support from two political action committees — $2,000 from the Louisville Apartment
Association PAC and $5,000 from the National Apartment Association PAC. He raised more than $35,000 in contributions. Dotson loaned his campaign $60,000.
In a phone interview with the Kentucky Lantern, Dotson called from Washington, D.C, Wednesday afternoon, where he has met with advisers to President Donald Trump, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson's political team, U.S. House GOP Whip Tom Emmer's team and more Republican politicos.
Dotson's campaign formally kicked off in June, which is when he began fundraising, he said.
'We're on track to do really, really well, but we started off fundraising right at the end of the quarter. So, we have several fundraisers scheduled,' Dotson said. 'We have several donors, different groups of donors, that will be giving pockets of money.'
As for his meetings in the Capital, Dotson said he's 'established some great relationships' and get more insight on his campaign.
'I'm very engaged when it comes to my stance on conservative issues,' Dotson said. 'So, I will be up here pushing back against the woke agenda. I'll be up here pushing back on things that I feel are detrimental to our nation and our families. A lot of that stuff does stir me up, and I've done it on the House floor in Frankfort, but I want to be able to come and do it here in Washington, D.C., as well.'
Richmond Republican state Rep. Deanna Gordon announced her campaign after the reporting quarter ended, so her campaign did not have to file financial reports this time.
Dr. Ralph Alvarado, the 2019 running mate of former Republican Gov. Matt Bevin, said in a social media post last week that he is considering a run for the seat. Alvarado had been serving as the commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Health but recently stepped down from the position. He is also a former Kentucky state senator.
This story was updated with additional comments Wednesday afternoon.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
28 minutes ago
- The Hill
White House officials defend Trump's firing of BLS chief
White House officials on Sunday defended President Trump's decision to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) following a weak jobs report, a move that has sparked broad criticism. 'The president wants his own people there so that when we see the numbers, they're more transparent and more reliable,' Kevin Hassett, chair of the National Economic Council, said on NBC's 'Meet the Press.' Hassett said in another interview on 'Fox News Sunday' that the BLS commissioner has a responsibility to explain major revisions such as the one seen in Friday's jobs report, which showed 258,000 fewer jobs for prior months than initially reported. 'The big downward revision is something of a puzzle. I don't think it was explained very well. And I think that markets might be as much unsettled by the fact that the data are so noisy,' Hassett said. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, one of Trump's top tariff negotiators, said in an interview that aired on CBS's 'Face the Nation' Sunday that the president has 'real concerns' about the jobs numbers reported by the Labor Department. 'Even last year during the campaign, there were enormous swings in the jobs numbers, and so sounds to me like the president has real concerns. You know, not just based on today's, but everything we saw last year,' Greer said in the interview taped on Friday. 'You want to be able to have somewhat reliable numbers,' he added. 'There are always revisions, but sometimes you see these revisions go in really extreme ways. And it's, you know, the president is the president. He can choose who works in the executive branch.' Trump on Friday directed his team to fire BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after the latest jobs report showed the country only adding 73,000 jobs in July, and major revisions for jobs added in May and June. The move prompted immediate outcry from Democrats and a handful of Republicans, with some calling for an investigation. McEntarfer was nominated by former President Biden and overwhelmingly confirmed by the GOP-led Senate early last year in an 86-8 vote. Trump's advisers underscored the president's concerns about revisions to the labor data while defending McEntarfer's firing. Hassett noted that jobs data reported by the government has seen major swings since the COVID-19 pandemic. 'What we've seen over the last few years is massive revisions to the jobs numbers. In fact, they were extremely reliable, the kind of numbers that you want to guide policy decisions and markets, through COVID. And then when COVID happened, because response rates went down a lot, then revision rates skyrocketed. So the typical monthly revision often was bigger than the number itself,' Hassett said on NBC. Trump, in axing the BLS chief, claimed without evidence that McEntarfer 'faked the Jobs Numbers' before the 2024 election in order to boost former Vice President Kamala Harris's White House bid, citing labor statistics revisions during the Biden administration that boosted job numbers ahead of the election. The president accused her of manipulating data to make him and Republicans look bad, writing on Truth Social on Friday, 'She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can't be manipulated for political purposes.' McEntarfer reacted to Trump's firing of her in a social media post over the weekend, saying it was the 'honor of my life' to serve in the role and hailing the 'vital and important work' carried out by civil servants at the agency.
The Hill
28 minutes ago
- The Hill
Senate confirms Jeanine Pirro as US Attorney for DC
The Senate on Saturday night confirmed President Trump's pick Jeanine Pirro as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Pirro, a former Fox News host and prosecutor who served as district attorney for Westchester County in New York, was confirmed along party lines in a 50-45 vote. Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) did not vote. Attorney General Pam Bondi celebrated the vote in a post on social platform X. 'Congratulations to my dear friend @USAttyPirro on her confirmation today! Jeanine is not only a wonderful person — she is a warrior for law and order,' Bondi wrote. 'I am absolutely thrilled to work side by side with my friend to keep Washington, DC safe,' she added. In a post on Saturday, Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Pirro 'should never be a permanent U.S. Attorney.' 'She endorsed the firing of January 6 prosecutors. She recklessly spread the Big Lie to the point her *own producers* had to tell her to cool it. Ultimately, she's a rubber stamp for Donald Trump,' he wrote. The Judiciary panel gave its approval to Pirro in mid-July despite Democratic backlash. Democrats walked out of a business meeting after debate on Pirro and another controversial Trump nominee was cut short. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in his own X post that it was 'a sad moment for the Senate and the country.' 'Republicans just confirmed Jeanine Pirro as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Yes, the same Judge Jeanine that even Fox News said was 'crazy' and had to take off the air. How can they vote to confirm these people?' the Democratic senator wrote. Pirro, who has been serving as the interim U.S. Attorney in D.C. since May, thanked Trump in a post on X 'for giving me the opportunity to bring justice to the swamp in D.C.' and she shared a message for the city: 'get ready for a real crime fighter.'
Politico
29 minutes ago
- Politico
GOP privacy hawks wage quiet battle with TSA over face recognition bill
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the bill's champion, in an interview compared the TSA's increasing use of facial recognition capabilities to similar apparatuses used by authoritarian countries like China and Hungary to conduct massive citizen surveillance. 'It's been used to intimidate, to track and to intimidate freedom of expression and freedom of assembly,' Merkley said. Merkley tried to shoehorn the legislation into last year's reauthorization of Federal Aviation Administration programs. But associations representing airlines, airport employees and other travel-related businesses fiercely opposed it, arguing it would allow bad actors to opt for manual ID checks and significantly increase wait times at airport security checkpoints. Industry backlash against the proposal is well enough known that it might have been the reason lobbyists weren't given an advance heads-up about the Commerce committee's plans to mark up the measure, Ryan Propis, vice president of security and facilitation at the U.S. Travel Association, intimated. 'The discussion at the time was that there's going to be more transparency, more hearings … around the use of biometrics,' said Propis in an interview about assurances the industry received at the time of Merkley's efforts to get the bill included in the FAA reauthorization. 'And unfortunately none of that has happened.' But lawmakers who have been trying to push the bill forward are saying that TSA was the real driving force behind the legislation's withdrawal, with the agency using industry lobbyists as conduits to relay dissatisfaction and mar the measure's chances. When asked Thursday whether he believed TSA itself was raising concerns about the bill, Cruz replied, 'undoubtedly.' The burgeoning industry tasked with supplying technologies that use sophisticated biometric data for identity verification, and which are increasingly powered by AI algorithms, have also arrived on the scene to tank the bill. Two of the sector's top associations, the Security Industry Association and the International Biometrics and Identity Association, sent a letter on the eve of the scheduled markup to Cruz and the top Commerce Committee Democrat, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington. In the missive, they contended that the bill was 'completely out of line with the Trump Administration's stated priorities for federal agencies to increasingly incorporate advanced technologies and limit unnecessary personnel costs.' Since the start of Trump's second term, the administration has been pushing for federal agencies to slash budgets and reduce personnel, touting technological advances like artificial intelligence as a cheaper, more efficient backfill. Testifying before House appropriators in May on the Trump administration's proposed $247 million cut to the TSA budget, McNeill also noted that her agency has been deploying state-of-the-art screening technology to airports around the globe, adding that 'a commitment to continually embracing new and emerging technology is urgently needed.' Following the postponement of the bill's consideration in committee, Cruz and other members of the panel said they were confident differences could be resolved in time to bring it up at a subsequent business meeting — and gave no indication they were planning to stand down despite administration opposition. 'I think the bill will get marked up,' said Cruz, 'and it's going to pass.'
