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. 

Michael Bowman is a Democrat running for Treasurer.

Bowman was raised in the Valley Station neighborhood in Louisville, and attended the University of Louisville. After college he worked for Yum! Brands before moving to work at the Louisville Metro City Council as a legislative assistant. During his eight years there he handled a variety of things including handling budget review, constituent concerns, and managing district offices. Most recently, he is working as a branch manager for a major US bank.

“Both of those things, between working in government and working at the bank kind of give me the background to do what I’m doing now in terms of seeking the office of state treasurer,” he said. “We have some things here in Kentucky that we need to work on and I think I’m up to the task to do that.”

He decided to run for treasurer because he believes he can make a difference in the office.

“We currently have some leaders in Frankfort that don’t look out for the best interest of Kentuckians and are absent in a lot of issues and I think we have to have someone who can stand up and be an advocate for Kentuckians whether you live in the west end of Louisville or the coal fields of Pikeville,” he said, “This is something that is very important to me, I’ve worked in my community my entire life and we need to make sure we are doing the right things for Kentuckians moving forward.”

Bowman says on of the most important roles as treasurer is sitting on boards and commissioners to determine how to spend taxpayer dollars.

 “The treasurer sits on the Teachers Retirement Board, and to date, we haven’t had one that advocates for our teachers and we need someone who will be able to sit there, understand the problem, know the background on what it means to do investments within a pension fund and bring solutions to the table and not try to move tax dollars away from public education as our current treasurer has attempted to do now,” he said. “She’s certainly supporting charter  schools where we take tax dollars from our public education and give it to private corporations.”

Current Treasurer Allison Ball has made increasing financial literacy a major part of her term, while Bowman says applauds her for that he says she’s doing a disservice by supporting charter schools.

“I will give her credit for that she has made that a platform but to me that is a little tongue and cheek when you want to take tax dollars from public education that’s ultimately going to be a piece of that financial literacy program ensuring we have programs within our schools that can teach our children how to manage their financial future,” he said. “When you espouse that and really push for those programs and then at the same time on the other hand take money out of the pot that will help that program succeed I find that to be a little disingenuous.”

Bowman says his goal within the office would be to work with local governments to fund financial literacy programs through partnerships in the communities.

As Bowman has been traveling throughout the commonwealth he says people are excited but some also feel disconnected.

“I am concerned that we have a segment of our population that has become a little disenfranchised and they don’t feel they are part of the process and it’s really going to become incumbent on whomever the nominees for our party to really drive a message to those individuals that we need you to show up, we need you to come and actually be involved and participate,” he said. “We can’t afford another election where we have less than 30 percent turnout because the result is what happened nearly four years ago.”

Kentucky voters are trending more red allowing more Republicans to win offices, Bowman says he can combat that trend by just showing up.

“You need to be a person who can go into these communities and talk face to face regardless of party, regardless of ideology and just have a conversation,” he said.  

Bowman is running against Josh Mers in the primary.