Gov. Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) political action committee is making a play in Kentucky’s open 6th Congressional District, investing a quarter of a million dollars in attack ad money against GOP candidate Ralph Alvarado.
In Kentucky’s 6th District, which circles Lexington and its surrounding area, former state Sen. Alvarado and Democratic former federal prosecutor Zach Dembo are facing off to see who will replace outgoing Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY), who left the upper chamber to run for Senate. Beshear has endorsed Dembo, who formerly worked for him as a policy adviser, while President Donald Trump has endorsed Alvarado.
Former Kentucky GOP Gov. Matt Bevin had chosen Alvarado as his running mate pick in his 2019 reelection campaign, which he lost to Beshear. Beshear’s PAC, In This Together, aims to tie Alvarado to Bevin, who suffered from low approval ratings and is currently in jail over contempt of court charges in a child support case, in the ad buy in the district.
The attack ad claims Alvarado “stood side by side with Bevin” when he made a series of controversial pardons as governor.
“Time and again, Alvarado chose his buddy Matt Bevin over protecting Kentucky families. Vote against Matt Bevin’s running mate, Ralph Alvarado, for Congress,” the Beshear PAC ad says.
The advertisement refers to pardons Bevin made on his way out of office after losing to Beshear, including one for a convicted murderer whose family had raised money to help with Bevin’s campaign debts from 2015, according to NPR. At the time, while Alvarado was in the Senate, the state Senate Republican majority condemned the pardons.
“I, along with the Senate Majority Caucus in Frankfort, condemned Matt Bevin’s grotesque pardons and opposed them publicly and in the strongest possible terms when they happened,” Alvarado told the Kentucky Lantern in a statement.
Alvarado said Dembo and “his out-of-state Democratic hatchet men are lying about my record, and the public record proves it.”
The Washington Examiner has reached out to Alvarado’s campaign for comment.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has listed Kentucky’s 6th District as “in play” for a Democratic pickup, has amped up its rhetoric targeting Alvarado over his former running mate’s connection to Bevin ever since the ex-governor was booked in a Louisville jail.
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Bevin was arrested in early September after a Louisville area judge found him in contempt of court for failing to turn over his financial records in his divorce and child support proceedings.
The limited, Democrat-sponsored polls in the race have shown tight margins between Alvarado and Dembo, but forecasters list the race as “likely Republican.” Barr won the district by a 26.8-percentage-point margin in 2024, while Trump carried the district by 15 points the same year.