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. 

Geoff Young is a Democrat running for Governor.

Young was born in Massachusetts, where he attended MIT earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics, he then went onto to earn a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from UMass Amherst. He moved to Fayette County in 1982. After moving to Fayette County, he attended University of Kentucky earning a Master’s Degree in Agricultural Economics. He worked for the state energy office in Frankfort after graduating school.

This isn’t Young’s first election. In fact, he’s run in many. He first began running for office in 2012. His first campaign was for the Kentucky House of Representatives running against Stan Lee. He then ran for the Sixth Congressional District in 2014,2016, and 2018. This gubernatorial campaign isn’t his first either, he ran in 2015 as well. He decided to run again because he feels he’s the best person for the job.

“My vision of Kentucky is a cooperative commonwealth, as opposed to what’s going on right now which is class warfare by the one percent, by the rich, by the huge corporations, against everyone else,” he said. “That is holding Kentucky back, we’re constantly fighting each other, rich against the middle class, rich against the poor.”

Young is running with Josh French from Elizabethtown. Young says the top priority for the ticket is strengthening unions in the state. Young says the Republican party is attempting to wipe out unions.

“The Republican party wants to end unions, end organized labor, and that’s immoral,” he said.

Abortion is another issue important the campaign. Young says he is a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and believes the Right to Life movement is bad for the country and the state.

“It has the goal since 1973 of making all abortions after conception illegal, that is a doom strategy, it must fail, it will fail, and we can never eliminate abortion as long as there are people on the earth,” he said. “Trying to make it all illegal would actually increase the abortion rate.”

Young says Republicans who take aim at Planned Parenthood, are actually causing abortions to increase.

“Planned provides birth control, information, services, health services for women,” he said. “So nobody who wants to put Planned Parenthood out of business can truthfully be called pro-life.”

Young says he’s the most pro-life candidate running.

“I want to end the death penalty for life, and defend the Roe v. Wade decision which solved the abortion problem, the abortion crisis; it’s the way to minimize the number of abortions in the long term. I’m the pro-life candidate, not Matt Bevin, not anyone else, not any Republican,” he said.

Young says he considers himself an outsider candidate. 

"The top of the Democratic Party, a couple dozen people, including Adam Edelen and Andy Beshear are crooks," he said. "They routinely rig Democratic primaries to exclude progressive, radicals such as me. They rig them by illegally diverting party resources during the primary to all the other candidates, and actually threatening me with arrest if I walk into the party headquarters building." 

Young says he is pro-peace Democrat, something he says the mainstream Democratic Party is moving away from. 

"The problem with the Democratic Party establishment today on a national level, is that it is recklessly, and insanely pro-war. It's pro-military spending, far beyond what we need to spend in this country," he said. 

Young has sued the Kentucky Democratic Party twice, once in 2015, which was tossed out, and most recently on April 10. Young says Adam Edelen is the first defendant, and Andy Beshear is the second, including 21 other individuals, and ten Democratic connected organizations. A big name Democrat not on the lawsuit--Rocky Adkins. 

"Rocky Adkins is a good strong, honest Democrat like me," he said. "He's not being sued, not at all. I disagree with him on the abortion issue but he's not a crook." 

Young says he can break the trend of Kentucky electing more Republicans into office by his stance on abortion. 

"I'm going to beat Matt Bevin on the abortion issue, and several other issues, relating to teachers, and pensions, and the state budget, and all that," he says. "But his position on abortion is 100 percent immoral and wrong." 

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