Matt Bevin seeks comeback in Ky. primary

Voters in Kentucky go to the polls in primary elections on Tuesday, with a close and bitter battle for the GOP nomination for governor by far the most closely watched race.

Three candidates are virtually neck and neck in the GOP primary, which Republicans hope will produce a candidate to succeed Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat who will step down due to term limits.

{mosads}Matt Bevin has the highest national profile among the Republican field, as the businessman and Tea Party conservative tried and failed to defeat Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in a primary last year. 

In the end, McConnell won easily, drawing approximately 60 percent of the vote. But the race was contentious, with Bevin assailing McConnell as a “career politician,” and McConnell’s team drawing up an opposition research dossier on Bevin that reportedly ran almost 500 pages.

McConnell has not publicly intervened in Tuesday’s gubernatorial primary, though, given his legendary knowledge of the minutiae of Kentucky politics, he will surely be watching the outcome closely.

This time around, Bevin might find a way past his rivals by staying out of a slugfest. 

The other two main GOP candidates are state Agriculture Commissioner James Comer and Hal Heiner, a former member of Louisville Metro Council.

Controversy erupted between the two, after a woman named Marilyn Thomas wrote to the Louisville Courier Journal alleging that Comer physically assaulted her when they dated as students at Western Kentucky University.

Comer adamantly denies her allegations. But he and his aides have also suggested the Heiner campaign played a central part in publicizing them. It has emerged that a Kentucky blogger, Michael Adams, who had been pushing the story of the alleged assault, had exchanged emails and met in person with Scott Crosbie, the husband of KC Crosbie, Heiner’s running mate.

Comer called the episode “the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in Kentucky political history.” 

When the Lexington Herald-Leader asked Heiner in early April if his campaign had any involvement with the blogger disseminating allegations against Comer, Heiner replied, “Absolutely none.” After details of the contact between Crosbie and Adams were revealed, however, Heiner issued a conditional personal apology to Comer “if anyone associated with my campaign is involved.”

Bevin, for his part, has run a TV ad that portrays Comer and Heiner as children involved in a food fight.

A poll last week from Survey USA found the three main GOP candidates in a statistical dead heat. Bevin received 27 percent support, Comer 26 percent and Heiner 25 percent from Republican voters, leaving backing for all three well within the poll’s 4.4-percentage-point margin of error. A fourth GOP candidate, Will T. Scott, trailed far behind at 8 percent.

On the Democratic side, state Attorney General Jack Conway is expected to win the gubernatorial nomination easily over Geoff Young, a retired engineer. Conway was defeated by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in a 2010 battle for a U.S. Senate seat representing the Bluegrass State.

Polls close in Kentucky at 6 p.m. local time Tuesday.