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    • Kentucky Democrats, GOP seek support in Trump-Harris race
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    Kentucky Democrats, GOP seek support in Trump-Harris race

    Pabio Posted on

    Flanked on both sides by houses flying flags supporting Donald Trump, Amy and Krista Heckmann say they have become accustomed to pedestrians on Clarks Lane stopping to take a photo of the Kamala Harris flag hanging on their porch.

    “We’ve been getting mail from neighbors we don’t know and have never met saying, ‘Thank you so much for your flag; we hope everything goes well in November,'” Amy said last week during a conversation about family. porch in Louisville’s Schnitzelburg neighborhood.

    The couple said they had a “cordial” relationship with their two neighbors: one of them did not respond when a Courier Journal reporter tried to make contact that evening, while the other owner did not. was not available. But with the presidential election approaching next week, they’re conscious of how their three homes look.

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    “They’ve been very respectful neighbors. We’ve never had any problems,” Amy said. “…But we probably don’t have much in common.”

    The Heckmanns use their home to get their message out. Others are still busy knocking on doors in the final days of the 2024 election season, which features Trump and Harris at the top of the ballot, but includes races for the 100 State House seatsas well as openings in the Kentucky Senate, Louisville Metro Council and other boards.

    As Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz campaigned last week in Louisville, deep red Kentucky was the first state to call Trump on Election Day four years agoand you can expect the former Republican president to win it again in 2024. He won the state by more than 25 points in 2016 and 2020, and University of Kentucky political science professor Stephen Voss expects a similar margin this year.

    Bobbie Coleman, chairwoman of the Republican Party in Hardin County, just south of Louisville, said support for Trump in her corner is higher than ever. The region’s Republicans are start adopting early votingshe said, after many GOP voters became wary four years ago.

    But Logan Gatti, chairman of the Louisville Democratic Party, said that even though Kentucky is not a swing state, that doesn’t mean party members are caving to the GOP. The stakes are too high.

    “For the longest time, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina weren’t considered Democratic states, and now all of a sudden – well, not all of a sudden – but now they’re states that come into play,” Gatti said Thursday. “We’re obviously facing a significant deficit in terms of our participation in the presidential election for the respective candidates. But you know what? We’re going to try to change the narrative as much as possible.”

    A renewed interest from voters

    With 1,659,088 registered Republicans, 1,508,617 registered Democrats and 380,431 voters from other parties, Secretary of State Michael Adams expects strong turnout across Kentucky, although he has not had a projection formal last week. Long queues at polling stations are possible on November 5, so he encouraged vote in advance between October 31 and November 2.

    Like Adams, Bob Babbage closely monitors voter registration numbers.

    The former Democratic state auditor and secretary of state said recent trends show more people are registering — the last four-year period included about 12,500 voters, he said, a figure three times higher than the previous four-year period. Among this set of voters, about 20 percent did not register as Democrats or Republicans, but of the remaining approximately 10,000 individuals, “for every registered Democrat, you had 15 Republican registrations.”

    “It’s usually more R than D. It’s been more R than D for about 10 years,” said Babbage, who now works as a lobbyist at the head of Co-founder of Babbage. And while he cautions against drawing far-reaching conclusions from these numbers, “it’s an indicator of a certain Republican interest that perhaps no one saw coming.”

    Needless to say, Babbage expects Trump to win the Bluegrass State by his usual margin. And Voss, who spoke with the Courier Journal last week about an hour before coming a forum in Louisville with US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnellsaid that even if we see “a little slippage in support for Trump,” we can still expect the former president to carry the state again.

    However, it will be important to watch how his presence on the ballot affects Republicans down in competitive local races.

    Some Kentucky candidates have linked their own campaigns to Trump.

    In northern Kentucky, House candidate TJ Roberts’ campaign website touts him as someone who has “dedicated his life to protecting the constitutional principles that made America great,” a wink nod to the former president’s famous slogan, and who is a staunch supporter of Trump. online.

    Josh Calloway, an Irvington starter, account on social networks how many days have passed since Trump’s second assassination attempt. His district includes parts of Hardin County, where Coleman said a strong majority of signs supporting presidential candidates support Trump — he got 62.5% of the vote there in 2016 and 61% in 2020.

    But Trump “damaged the Republican brand” in the suburbs and wealthy areas that border Kentucky’s largest cities, Voss said, as well as factors such as the crackdown on abortions following the repeal of the Roe v. Wade and other culture war issues that alienated voters. . Ken Fleming, incumbent in Louisville, does not refer to Trump on his campaign website but highlights how he sponsored bills supporting maternal health and access to child care.

    “Voters are tired of political polarization, but this is the kind of trap they can’t get out of because they respond to these messages that they find so boring,” the professor said. “As long as fear-mongering pays off, they will continue to use it, even if voters regret their own sins.”

    It’s hard to escape the rhetoric of the presidential race

    “Alarmism,” as Voss put it, is almost impossible to avoid these days. Both presidential candidates have framed the race as one where democracy is at stake.

    Harris called Trump a “fascist” during a town hall last week, citing report from The Atlantic that the former president praised Adolf Hitler’s generals during his mandate. His campaign said she plans to deliver her closing speech this week at the location where Trump spoke the morning of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

    Trump, meanwhile, has called Harris a “fascist” on at least five occasions, the New York Times reported in Septemberand told attendees at a rally last month that they “won’t have a country anymore” if she is elected, pushing debunked claims that migrant gangs are take control of cities across the United States because of the border policies she and President Joe Biden have supported.

    It’s hard to escape, even in a state like Kentucky, where Trump is almost guaranteed to win next week. And canvassers have seen it firsthand when you knock on doors across the Commonwealth.

    Gatti is clear on his position. Trump is “an objectively bad person who should not be in charge of the beacon of democracy on this stage,” he said. He doesn’t want to go negative when encouraging voters to go to the polls, he said, but “at this point we’re talking about democracy at stake, so we kind of have to go that route.”

    “We are the ones focused on investments in infrastructure and public safety and an economic plan that helps everyone,” the Louisville Democratic Party leader said. “…And when we talk about Donald Trump, we talk about chaos, instability, political tweets.”

    Coleman, the Hardin County GOP chairman who spoke Friday before a busy evening of canvassing for Calloway and other local candidates, took a different view. She worries about political polarization and hopes the country can “find a way to try to bring us together again,” but the current administration’s border policies and its stance on gender issues have landed the nation in dire straits. “dangerous, very dangerous positions”.

    “We have a lot of things to fix in our country without people feeling isolated,” she said. “I wish I had that full answer. No, but I hope we see that one day.”

    Asked specifically about the rhetoric in the presidential race last week in Louisville, McConnell reversed course and instead said voters should “vote based on their satisfaction with the current administration.” Two days later, he issued a statement with U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, calling on Harris to “end this dangerous rhetoric.”

    “Calling one political opponent a ‘fascist’ risks inviting another would-be assassin to attempt to deprive voters of their choice before Election Day,” they wrote, without chastising Trump for using similar language.

    It’s exhausting, Babbage said. And it could convince some voters to stay home on Election Day.

    “You heard the term about three months ago, ‘double haters,’ from people who hated both choices,” the former secretary of state said. “What I hear the most is ‘double doubters’ – doubts about the two main candidates because of some inconsistencies and some incomplete answers and just frustration, hatred, vitriol and name-calling that really have no relation to what we talk about when we sit down on the weekend and try to make decisions with family or friends.”

    It’s also exhausting at Clarks Lane, where the Heckmann flag is still flying a week before Election Day.

    When people see the three houses, Krista Heckmann said, she hopes people will see that “there is still hope and will encourage people to vote — and to be smart and informed about their vote.” .

    It’s uncomfortable, Amy added, but “even if your neighbor is different, you can still be neighbors.”

    Contact Lucas Aulbach at [email protected].

    Pabio
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