BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Former State Rep. Patti Minter, a Democrat, announced her campaign for mayor of Bowling Green. She will challenge incumbent Republican Mayor Todd Alcott, who announced earlier he was running for reelection.

“Bowling Green deserves leaders who lift people up instead of leaving people out,” Minter said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. In her announcement, she said politicians in City Hall have “ignored people they’re supposed to represent … enabling discrimination against people simply because of who they love,” and listened to “big real estate developers, but not neighborhood families.” 

Minter touted her work as a state legislator, where she said she worked with the governor and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to lower the cost of insulin, pass relief funding for tornado recovery, get federal funding for a veterans center and secure $3.5 million for roads.

Minter served for two terms in the Kentucky House of Representatives, representing Bowilng Green and the 20th District. She lost her reelection bid in 2022 to Republican Kevin Jackson by 1,126 votes.

She will challenge Alcott in the Nov. 5 election. Alcott is a teacher at Warren East High School who said he wants to prioritize the city’s infrastructure in his reelection campaign.

“Bowling Green, right now, is the third largest city in Kentucky,” he said. “We want to keep it as the third-largest and keep it as the fastest-growing but also keep that hometown feeling that everybody loves and knows.”