When the Republican candidates for governor take the debate stage on Wednesday morning, they'll be without the frontrunner. Daniel Cameron has led the polls for months, but doesn't plan to participate in a debate Wednesday morning.
The Kentucky Sports Radio Republican Primary Governor's debate is set for Wednesday morning at 10:00 a.m. Cameron, along with former Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft, Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles, Auditor Mike Harmon, and Somerset Mayor Alan Keck are all invited. Craft did not participate in the first debate last month. This time, Cameron, won't be there.
"Well, we've got a fentanyl forum during the debate and, obviously, look, opioids and the issue of fentanyl is really, really important and fighting it is really important. We are continuing to double down on that effort," Cameron said.
KSR host Matt Jones says Cameron had agreed to the debate and that the campaign scheduled the fentanyl forum after the debate was scheduled. He said he learned Cameron would not participate through a press release and said he tried to accommodate Cameron's schedule.
"The only thing you can do in this world is trust someone's word. He gave me his word and I did everything I humanly could to accommodate them, and they intentionally scheduled something against it so they could say there was a conflict," Jones said on his radio show.
According to polling sponsored by Nexstar Media and conducted by Emerson College, Cameron came in at 30%, Craft at 24%, Quarles at 15%, Harmon at 2%, and Keck at 0.6%. The race has tightened since the first polls in January showed Cameron at 39% and Craft at 13%. He attributes that change to the number of ads Craft has been running in recent weeks.
"We don't take stock in any one particular poll. We're just going to keep working hard through the course of this campaign. I've got a responsibility to get to as many places as I can, and obviously, someone has spent nearly five million dollars attacking me in this process," Cameron said.
The primary election is May 16.
