KENTUCKY — The 2023 general election season is in full swing and as the summer temperature continues to heat up, so is the race for governor of Kentucky.

This past week, Harrodsburg native Jacqueline Coleman, D-Ky., signed her candidacy papers and officially filed to run for another four-year term in office as current Gov. Andy Beshear’s, D-Ky., running mate on the Democratic ticket.

“This is the first time that a lieutenant governor has had to file paperwork separate from the governor, because the rules changed after the after the 2019 election, and so it’s a little bit different, but I was the first person to file that specific paperwork in Kentucky’s history. So that was a pretty neat day,” Coleman explained. “But I signed on to run with Gov. Beshear again because I believe in the kind of Kentucky that he’s committed to building. We elected a governor in Andy, that treats every Kentucky family like they are his own and I can’t think of a better compliment to give a leader than that. And so for both of us, who have spent the last four years putting people over politics, showing up for folks in their darkest hour after the tornadoes in the west or the flooding in the east through a global pandemic that was uncertain for all of us.”

Coleman, who spent years as a teacher and school administrator, touted the Beshear administration’s record of pushing for teacher pay raises and opposing efforts she said would benefit private schools at the expense of public schools. Coleman credited support from teachers as a crucial factor in Beshear’s narrow victory over Republican incumbent Matt Bevin in the 2019 governor’s race.

During the election this fall, incumbent Democrats Andy Beshear and Jacqueline Coleman are being challenged by Republicans Attorney General Daniel Cameron and State Sen. Robby Mils.

“With him, that was a clear signal that education was going to be a priority, that women and rural Kentuckians would be a priority. And I think you’ve seen that, you know, woven through the work that we’ve done over the last several years. In this scenario, I think the same is true. This LG pick is signal’s Daniel Cameron’s priorities. You’ve heard him say before that he believes that the sewer bill should have been defended. That our pensions should have been put in a sewer bill and rushed into law at the dead of night and he would have defended that. So it’s pretty fitting that he would have Robby Mills, one of the architects of the sewer bill on his ticket with him,” added Coleman.

You can watch the full In Focus Kentucky segment in the player above.