Beshear campaign raises millions for reelection, Craft campaign raises more

(LEX 18) — A lot of money goes into running a campaign trail for Kentucky governor but exactly how much money goes into it?

Kentucky's primary election is less than a month away and candidates running for governor had until Tuesday to file their campaign finance reports.

On the GOP side of Kentucky's governor race, there's a clear front-runner in terms of financial backing.

Kelly Craft has raised $7.2 million on her campaign, according to totals through the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance. The report lists $7 million was loaned by Craft herself.

Since she has entered the race, Craft has raised $8.5 million. Her campaign indicates it has $437k cash on hand.

To put that number into perspective, Daniel Cameron and Ryan Quarles are the only other GOP candidates with more than a million dollars invested.

Cameron's campaign reports it raised $403K since the beginning of 2023 and has $593K cash on hand.

Quarles' campaign reports it has raised $272K so far this year. The group has $903K cash on hand.

On the other side of the ballot, Gov. Behsear has $1.4 million raised this year alone, with a total of $6.6 million for his full re-election campaign. The group reports it has $5.9 million of that cash on hand.

KREF numbers:

Daniel Cameron
This period: $403,520.28; Total: $1,370,904.08; Cash on hand: $593,457.61

Kelly Craft
This period: $7,264,005.77; Total: $8,563,232.77; Cash on hand: $437,916.96

Eric Deters
This period: $569,573.04; Total: $669,064.48; Cash on hand: $9,318.60

Mike Harmon
This period: $15,849.00; Total: $84,547.22; Cash on hand: $14,454.15

Alan Keck
This period: $106,876.56; Total: $311,716.52; Cash on hand: $54,139.20

Ryan Quarles
This period: $272,647.73; Total: $1,202,650.11; Cash on hand: $903,230.95

Kentucky's primary election is Tuesday, May 16.