Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is backed by former President Donald Trump, won the Republican gubernatorial primary Tuesday and will face incumbent Democrat Andy Beshear in November's election.
"Sounds like Kentucky is ready for a new governor," said Cameron, the state's first Black nominee for governor, in his acceptance speech, according to the Louisville Courier Journal. "The Trump culture of winning is alive and well in Kentucky."
Cameron beat a 12-person field that included Kelly Craft, who succeeded Nikki Haley as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration and who also was endorsed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, expected to be Trump's main rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
With 88% of the vote tabulated, Cameron stood at 47.3%, followed by Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles with 21.8% and Craft with 17.3%, according to The New York Times. Beshear was way ahead in a three-way Democratic primary with 91.0% of the vote.
"In Kentucky we take care of each other and we believe in our core about that brighter tomorrow," Beshear said during a rally in the state capital of Frankfort, according to the Courier Journal. "Tonight is a step in continuing some of the best and most hopeful progress Kentucky has ever seen."
It will be a role reversal from the 2019 campaign, when Beshear, as Kentucky's attorney general, used the office as a springboard to the governor's seat. But Beshear narrowly defeated Republican Matt Bevin by a little more than 5,000 votes. Cameron, who replaced Beshear as attorney general, trounced Democrat Greg Stumbo with 57.2% of the vote.
Republicans hold large advantages in Kentucky's General Assembly. In March, lawmakers easily overrode a Beshear veto of a bill aimed at regulating gender-transition care and restricting use of bathrooms, locker rooms, and shower rooms to a student's biological sex. It also bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools and allows teachers to refuse to refer to transgender students by the pronouns they use.
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