FRANKFORT, Ky. — Several Republican state lawmakers will watch primary results closely Tuesday as they try to fend off challengers from opponents who question their conservative pedigree.

“Obviously, when you’re looking at primaries or even in general, candidates matter,” former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson said. “But if you look at it from a macro-level, there is a pretty clear trend, which is a lot of the folks running in primaries against Republicans are coming at it from a ‘liberty’ angle.”

Grayson said the so-called ‘liberty’ challengers come as Kentucky becomes increasingly more Republican and some in the party believe lawmakers aren’t shrinking government enough.

“It’s also where a lot of the energy is in the party,” Grayson said. “We’re coming out of a two-year pandemic where some of the disagreements, or just one of the biggest challenges, was what amount of personal freedom or liberty do we need to give up in a public health crisis?”

This debate is unfolding in the 22nd Senate District between incumbent Sen. Donald Douglas and Andrew Cooperrider, a business owner who rallied against COVID restrictions. It’s also unfolding in several other primaries for House seats across the state that are held by incumbents.  

“I think you’re seeing a combination of pre-existing fault lines in Northern Kentucky and some deep-pocketed single-issue outside groups in the rest of the state that are backing candidates,” political analyst Trey Watson said.

Watson runs a political action committee that’s putting money behind some incumbents in Northern Kentucky, including Reps. Adam Koenig and Ed Massey.

“We just want to make sure that we have people who aren’t up in Frankfort who want to push an agenda that’s separate from what the state needs, which is common sense, Main Street, business-minded solutions,” Watson said.

Several outside groups have put money into the campaigns, flooding the districts with attack ads and mailers, targeting not just Koenig and Massey but Reps. Kim King, Kim Moser, Sal Santoro, Samara Heavrin and Brandon Reed. Watson said it’s not unexpected.

“That’s not called negative campaigning; let’s call that, ‘aggressive contrast,’” he said. “When you’re asking someone to kick an incumbent out of office, you’re asking someone who has voted for that person in previous elections to change their minds, and to change the behavior, you can’t do that by just saying well I’m a better choice than that guy; you have to come with some ammunition.”

And with the Republican majority in Frankfort, Grayson said the incumbents have a lot to campaign on.  

“If you’re stepping back and saying, OK, I’ve got a legislature that did all of this, that’s a good message for Republican incumbents to run on, and that’s what they’re doing,” Grayson said. “That’s what those incumbents are doing and trying to really narrow the playing field and saying, ‘Why would you try to get rid of us? Look what we did.’”

A few incumbents may lose their seats Tuesday, but Grayson said anything more than that would be a surprise.