FRANKFORT, Ky. — The primary election is on June 23, and Spectrum News 1's political reporter Michon Lindstrom sat down with Shannon Fabert, a Democrat running in the Fourth Congressional District.
Q. It’s just a few days until the primary, how are you feeling?
A. I don't know if I know how to feel exactly, I'm nervous, I'm anxious, I'm calm and I'm also focused. I feel like my team and I have run the race that we wanted to run, and I'm very proud of that. So, there you go.
Q. What are some of the main issues of your campaign?
A. I think first and foremost on everybody's mind, obviously, with the pandemic has been healthcare, and I think as we look at that, now more than ever, it's apparently clear that our healthcare cannot be tied to our employment only. And so, there has to be some movement there. And then education is another huge topic for me, we rank 46th in the nation and I would really like to see some positive change for that, especially as we look towards how zip codes affect people's school, public schools, and I believe that every public school should be great. And then, lastly, the economy and how that's tied to an infrastructure plan. It's time, it's well overdue we need a federal infrastructure plan that is going to fix our roads, bridges. I believe that broadband should be a utility, and there's just so many aspects of it out there, so there's so many topics to talk about but I would say that those are my three or four.
Q. How has it been trying to get your message out, it is a pretty conservative district so I think you're already facing an uphill battle with an incumbent, but then we also have a pandemic where you can't go out and actually meet voters face to face, and so what has your campaign had to do to really kind of overcome that?
A. We suspended our face to face or live events back in March, pretty early on I think probably around March 11, and then really focused on our digital campaign. We have been texting, calling, Facebook, Zoom events, Instagram events, Reddit AMA, just using what we have from a technology perspective to really drive the message home. Hopefully, we are in a better spot going into the general regarding public outings, but it really has been a matter of trying to connect through ways that we already had at our disposal but just much heavier. We always had the plan to use digital we just had to move it up a lot sooner than we were planning on.
Q. I've noticed you and your opponent are staying positive and not attacking each other, you're really staying positive and stay on your message. Why do you think that you're the better candidate to beat Thomas Massie?
A. I have a background in business consulting, I sit down on a regular basis and have sat down on a regular basis with executives, frontline employees and sat at the table and said how do we create positive change in your company. What are the things that we need to do, not just financially but also culturally, and so it's a unique position to be in. On that side because there's so many varying targets that people want to accomplish and being able to sit down and negotiate through those and then going out and working with them to actually make it happen is my strong point. That's what I've been doing for the last 15 years, and I think that's what Congress needs right now too. We have a lot of ideologues out there, and I feel as though Congress should not be made up of people like that. I think that people want to see it go back to the ways of being able to compromise and not just sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the issues of everybody else out there. And so, like I said as a consultant that's what I've been doing, and that's why I feel like I'm uniquely positioned to be successful in Congress doing that. And you mentioned, my primary opponent and I, we made a pact about this a while back. This isn't about attacking her or her attacking me this honestly is about getting the right person into Congress and we just don't think, we both are in agreement that the person that currently is there is not the guy.
Q. As I mentioned earlier the fourth district is kind of conservative but it's also a very wide diverse district, and so why do you think voters are ready to flip and vote for a Democrat?
A. I do actually, I think when you have somebody who has passed very little legislation and has pretty much ignored what I feel is the voice of the constituency. I believe that there are more than just Democrats that are looking for change, obviously he's in a contested primary as well so that goes to the point of people are looking for change and looking for something that's going to work for them. It is a very wide and diverse district for sure and that's the beauty of it though because, again, being able to sit down and talking to so many people from Covington to Shelbyville, all over the fourth. We're still looking for the same thing, we're still looking for improvement and we're still looking for that change so I do believe that the fourth is ready for it.