Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) is taking an active role in Democrats’ quest to flip a Trump-won House district in Kentucky, lending his name and fundraising operation to a former adviser running to replace outgoing Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY).
Beshear, a popular second-term governor and the rare Democrat to hold statewide office in Kentucky, plans to make multiple trips to Barr’s Lexington-area district to campaign on behalf of Zach Dembo, a former Navy officer and prosecutor who served as legislative director for Beshear.
The governor’s political team says those stops are expected to happen in the final days of the race and are part of a coordinated effort to help Democrats flip Kentucky’s 6th, a red district that Beshear won by double digits in 2023.
Beshear held the first of two fundraisers for Dembo on Wednesday — the second will take place next week — and has already sent fundraising appeals using his email list. On the airwaves, Beshear is making a “significant” investment through his leadership PAC, In This Together, and has offered to be featured in ads.
“I am proud to support Zach Dembo for Congress,” Beshear said in a statement. “Zach served our country and our state honorably in the Navy, as a federal prosecutor, and as a key advisor in my administration to help make life better for Kentucky families.”
“This November, Democrats are going to retake control of the House of Representatives and hold Trump accountable, and Kentucky is going to send Zach Dembo to Congress to be part of the new majority,” he added.
Beshear made his first appearance with Dembo at a June rally in Lexington and has recorded digital content on his behalf. As for Beshear’s PAC, it placed $250,000 in advertising that began airing this week.
Beshear’s involvement in the race, one of 58 that House Democrats are contesting across the country, effectively pits his popularity against that of President Donald Trump in Kentucky. Democrats frequently note that Trump carried the 6th District by 15 points in 2024, but that Beshear won it by almost 20 points during his 2023 reelection bid.
Beshear, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association and a possible 2028 presidential contender, is still building his name recognition nationally. Starting this week, he’s embarking on a book tour that will take him to three early voting states.
But in Kentucky, Beshear is a household name who followed his father, former Gov. Steve Beshear, into government and has won repeated statewide races with his Bible-quoting brand of politics.
He joins other Democratic governors, from Josh Shapiro (D-PA) to Gavin Newsom (D-CA), who are using their influence to help shape the outcome of the midterm elections. The 6th District is the only one considered in play for Democrats in Kentucky.
It will be tough for perhaps any other Democratic figure to overperform like Beshear in such a red state. For the last decade, Barr has held the 6th District seat for Republicans. In 2022, it became less competitive when the GOP-dominated legislature redrew district lines.
Still, Democrats believe that Beshear’s presence in central Kentucky will only help at a time of high diesel and fertilizer costs spurred by the war in Iran. In Kentucky and other agriculture-heavy states, the war has fanned the possibility of a midterm blue wave.
“What Gov. Beshear did so well is focus on issues that affect people’s everyday lives, and I think that’s absolutely replicable,” Dembo said in an interview, framing himself as an “independent voice” in the mold of Beshear.
“People don’t wake up thinking about being Republican or Democratic,” Dembo said. “Folks are just looking for someone who’s going to fight for them, who’s going to deliver for their family, and make sure they can afford everyday things and have a good job and have affordable healthcare.”
Republicans also will not have the advantage of incumbency with Barr running to succeed Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in the Senate.
Instead, Republicans have nominated Ralph Alvarado, a doctor and former state legislator who is making a return to Kentucky politics after a stint as Tennessee’s top public health official.
Nonpartisan election forecasters expect the seat to stay in Republican hands. Barr won there in 2024 by 26 points. But the race is competitive enough that No Going Back, a Trump-aligned super PAC, is reserving more than half a million in TV advertising for Alvarado as of this week.
The Alvarado campaign also received national attention for revamping its website in August to remove mentions of Trump. Alvarado later argued the report was overblown and that his support for the president is “well-documented.”
The national environment could matter more than the strength of any individual candidate. The party in power typically faces political headwinds in a midterm election, and Trump’s favorability ratings are hovering near second-term lows.
But Democrats are also attempting to localize the race by linking Alvarado to Matt Bevin, the former governor Beshear defeated to win his first term in 2019. Alvarado was Bevin’s running mate at the time.
In This Together began running ads this week highlighting the pardons Bevin issued that year for a convicted child rapist and murderer, claiming that Alvarado stood “side by side” with Bevin as other Republicans denounced him.
The Alvarado campaign rebutted that allegation, calling the pardons “grotesque,” and in a statement returned the mudslinging. Adviser Tim Murtaugh accused Dembo of participating in the “defund the police frenzy” when he helped pursue charges against state troopers later acquitted in an excessive force case.
“He would vote to increase taxes, and he would side with DC Democrats to throw our borders wide open again,” Murtaugh said. “He would be a disaster for Kentucky. Television ads purchased by Beshear’s PAC money won’t erase any of that.”
The attacks come as Beshear prepares to return to Lexington on Sunday for the first stop in a book tour that will take him to three early 2028 nominating states: South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Michigan.
One of those events will be held with Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), a Democratic kingmaker in South Carolina politics who helped revive Joe Biden’s successful 2020 presidential campaign.
For Dembo, winning in Kentucky will require him to overcome the GOP argument that he would be a rubber stamp for Democrats, as well as the fact that federal elections are traditionally more partisan than state or local races.
In the interview, Dembo referred to himself as a “nonpartisan problem solver” and distanced himself from career politicians who he said “seem more interested in loyalty to party than loyalty to constituents.”
Dembo has joined other Democrats promising to crack down on corruption if elected to Congress, naming a ban on insider trading and term limits as priorities. As far as oversight of the Trump administration, he rejected calls to impeach the president without further investigation into allegations he has abused the presidency.
“That’s like asking a juror or judge to decide something without any evidence or charges,” Dembo said.
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“There’s a process to this, and again, as a prosecutor, you’d never hear me looking to get to the conclusion without understanding the allegations, the evidence, due process, and then the result,” he added.
When asked for areas of agreement with the Trump administration, Dembo praised the president for recognizing the new Syrian government last year. Domestically, he said Trump had “at least given lip service to not allowing private equity and large corporations to buy up rental properties.”