Only 3 candidates show for GOP debate. Craft speaks against ‘transgenders’ at her event.

With a pair of top candidates absent, three GOP candidates for governor of Kentucky dug into the issues in another live televised debate on Monday night at Transylvania University.

This time turned out to be less combative than last. The debate, hosted by Lexington TV station WKYT, took a shorter format approach that offered fewer opportunities for candidates to banter.

Commissioner of Agriculture Ryan Quarles, conservative activist Eric Deters and auditor Mike Harmon all weighed in on taxation, abortion, LGBTQ issues, education and more. Attorney General Daniel Cameron and former ambassador Kelly Craft – who polled first and second, respectively, in a recent survey – declined invitations to attend.

At the last GOP candidate debate held last week, a feud between Cameron and Craft got fiery and Deters often stoked the flames.

Harmon said he was “a little disappointed” that Craft and Cameron chose not to attend the debate.

A group of politically invested Transylvania students expressed some disappointment in Craft and Cameron’s no-shows, but said they weren’t surprised.

“I think it’s because Cameron is content with the (former president Donald) Trump endorsement,” said Tate Ohmer, a senior who was previously president of Kentucky College Democrats. “He’s hoping that takes him over the finish line, and he’s concerned that every time he sticks his neck out in the debate he can only do damage.”

Craft discusses ‘transgender agenda’

Instead of attending the debate, Craft opted to host a “tele-town hall” at the same time Monday evening. During the hour-long call, a host read questions that were reportedly submitted by callers; other listeners did not hear the voices of the participants who submitted the questions.

Craft used the time to focus on her signature issues: combating “woke” ideologies in schools, beating the opioid epidemic and bashing Attorney General Daniel Cameron.

One question asked Craft how she’d “combat the transgender agenda” in classrooms. Craft touted the record of her lieutenant governor running mate, State Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville. Wise sponsored Senate Bill 150 in the 2023 General Assembly; it started as a bill that would not require teachers to use a transgender or nonbinary student’s pronouns but morphed into an omnibus anti-trans bill that also banned gender-affirming care for trans youth.

“Under a Craft-Wise administration, we will not have transgenders in our school system,” Craft said, before pivoting to talk about library materials available in public schools.

“You just can’t imagine what’s out there, but under a Craft-Wise administration we will not have transgender,” Craft said, before abruptly pivoting again. “I traveled with Riley Gaines. If you hear her story, you will understand. Women compete with women in sports. We have girls are girls and boys are boys. And we’re going to keep it that way.”

Gaines is the former University of Kentucky swimmer who has become a right-wing darling for speaking out about having to compete against trans swimmer Lia Thomas.

The Herald-Leader reached out to the Craft campaign to clarify what the candidate means by not having “transgenders in our school system.” The newspaper received a response Tuesday morning.

“Of course Kelly was referring to the woke ideologies being pushed in our schools,” a campaign spokesperson said. “She has been advocating for the best for all children this entire campaign.”

Craft’s comments about trans issues in schools came just days after she seemingly compared transgender people to horses.

“I thought about this today, Oaks day, we’ve got all the fillies racing,” Craft said in an interview with NewsRadio 840 WHAS Friday. “Can you imagine after – Riley Gaines has been traveling around the state with me, she’s a close friend – an you imagine if those fillies looked over in that race here shortly, coming up … and saw a male horse running next to them. Three-year-old fillies that have done nothing but training for this moment, how do you think they would feel?”

The Kentucky Oaks is a race at Churchill Downs held every Friday before the Kentucky Derby. The race is for fillies – female horses.

On the issues

Bryant found some daylight on taxing and spending between the three candidates who made it to Transylvania on Monday night.

Deters said he wanted to cut income taxes at a faster pace than the current GOP-led state legislature has put in place. Quarles and Harmon shared the sentiment that they wanted to erase the income tax, but didn’t call for any change to the current plan.

Asking the candidates what they would recommend the legislature do with the state’s historic budget surplus, answers varied.

Quarles recommended “one-time injections” into the state’s pension obligations, and to “protect and extend” benefits to all state employees. Deters suggested that more money should be given to victims of recent natural disasters in Eastern and Western Kentucky. Harmon said that the surplus should be given back to taxpayers somehow.

All candidates were in agreement that public school teachers should be directly awarded a raise.

When asked about whether or not they would support an initiative to give localities more options for taxation, all three expressed openness to the idea as a lifeline for cities and counties.

On abortion, none of the three candidates on stage said they would make any changes to Kentucky’s trigger ban on abortion. After the debate, however, Deters said that he supports exceptions for victims of rape or incest before 15 weeks of pregnancy. Quarles has said before that he’s “open” to further discussion on the ban after a supreme court challenge to the law is ruled upon.

All candidates said they supported the provisions of Senate Bill 150, which some have characterized as one of the most ‘anti-trans’ bills passed passed by any state legislature.

Ysa Leon, a junior who uses they/them pronouns, said they asked candidates post-debate why transgender issues were such a major talking point for conservatives and was disappointed to hear some candidates express only privately that they wanted to focus on other issues.

“They just used their buzzwords (during the debate), and they won’t do that face-to-face,” Leon said.