The primary election is May 21, and there are several candidates seeking their party's nomination. The Pure Politics team has contacted each candidate with a primary opponent to find out who they are, and what they stand for. 

Andy Beshear is a Democrat running for Governor.

Beshear has been serving as Attorney General since 2015.

“It’s a job where I get to fight for people every day,” he said. “It’s given me a huge amount of purpose and I’ve loved serving the people of Kentucky.”

He decided to run for governor because he says the people of Kentucky deserve better than Governor Matt Bevin. Beshear points to Bevin’s Medicaid 1115 Waiver, public gripes with teachers and the opioid epidemic as reasons for new leadership.

“We desperately need results and I get them,” he said. “First, I have a record of beating Matt Bevin, when he illegally cut the budgets of our universities I stood up to him, we won, and we returned $18 million where it belonged. When he closed the doors of our capitol to those who disagreed with them, I put out the order, we reopened those doors. That is the public’s house and they are welcome there at any time. And when he tried to illegally cut retirements of 200,000 public servants, I stood up for them and we beat Matt Bevin 7-0 in front of the Supreme Court.” 

Beshear also pointed to his work as attorney general clearing the rape kit backlog, returning money to seniors who lost it to scammers, targeting human traffickers, and fighting the drug epidemic.

A major issue in his campaign is health care. Beshear rolled out a comprehensive health care plan. His goal is to make sure everyone in Kentucky is covered, and the costs are lowered.

“Let’s make it illegal in Kentucky to kick someone off their policy for a preexisting condition,” he said. “Second thing we’re going to do is, is we’re going to embrace Medicaid and expanded Medicaid, we’re going to get rid of that Medicaid waiver because folks on expanded Medicaid already work, the governor is just trying to create paperwork to kick them off. And the third thing we are going to do is lower everybody’s costs” 

Beshear says a way to lower costs is to force pharmaceutical companies to keep drug prices low by having the state not purchase drugs if the costs are inflated.

Healthcare isn’t the only issue Beshear is running on, he says protecting public education is very important to him.

“Public education is under attack. First, we know our teachers are under attack, I mean being called thugs, having their retirement cut and now this attempt to bully them out of coming to a special session by threatening them with fines,” he said. “But it’s more than that; the system of public education is under attack. Matt Bevin has stocked that board of education with people who want to make money off of either charter schools or private schools, and then they even attack the basic facts in public education.”

Beshear says public schools need more funding to upgrade resources within the schools; this includes things like buying new books, providing counselors and medical care, and food for needy children.

Pensions are another issue that Beshear finds important, as governor, Beshear says he would make sure to fully fund the pension system and create new revenue to better fund the system. He says there are four ways to increase the revenue in the state. First, is expanded gaming.

“We lose $550 million to surrounding states just from what people in Kentucky already bet and is taxed by other states,” he said. “Let’s send that to the pension system.”

Second, Beshear says legalizing medical marijuana could create extra revenue. Doing away with some tax breaks is a third way to increase revenue.

“If you can afford to buy a private jet, which I wouldn’t know but some people can, then you can afford to pay sales taxes,” he said.

Finally, Beshear says making sure companies who are given incentives pay a living wage is another way to free up revenue in Kentucky.

Beshear has come under fire for past work representing the Boy Scouts of America against sex abuse claims. While a private attorney Beshear argued that it was past the statute of limitations to charge these scout masters, a Paducah judge agreed. Beshear says since when he became attorney general, one of the first things he worked on was lengthening the statute of limitations.

“I think it needs to be even longer though, because we know how difficult it is for people to come forward,” he said. “What it also drove me to do is to give survivors a voice, an ability to not only talk about their trauma, but to try and turn it into triumph. I created the first survivors council, which is over 20 survivors of violent crime everything from abuse, to domestic violence, to mom’s who have lost their kids to gun violence, and being empowered and having the power of the attorney general’s office behind and supporting them, they have gone on to do things like end child marriage in Kentucky.”

Beshear says he’s the best man to take on Matt Bevin in the fall because he’s a candidate of right now.

“Different candidates in this race will talk about the past or the future, but our families need help right now,” he said. “We got a lot of people out there working where their wages never go up, but their wages always do, which means they fall further behind. They should feel good at the end of the week instead of frustrated. I want to work to get them a better job right now.”

Beshear is running against Rocky Adkins, Adam Edelen, and Geoff Young in the primary.