ELECTION KY

Three Kentucky state Senate contests tip to GOP, including the race of two Turners

Louisville Courier Journal

Three closely watched races for the state Senate ended with Republicans easily maintaining their supermajority in the chamber and picking up two seats previously held by Democrats, according to unofficial returns on the Kentucky State Board of Elections website.

Adrienne Southworth, a Lawrenceburg Republican and first-time candidate, won a seat long held by Democrats by defeating Democrat Joe Graviss of Versailles.

Southworth won about 53% of the vote in the contest for the 7th District seat that includes Frankfort held since 2005 by retiring Sen. Julian Carroll, a Democrat.

And in Eastern Kentucky, Republican challenger Johnnie L. Turner of Harlan, with 53% of the vote, ousted Democrat incumbent Johnny Ray Turner of Prestonsburg for the 29th District Senate seat.

Sen. Chris McDaniel, a Latonia Republican and chairman of the Senate budget committee, kept his Northern Kentucky seat in Kenton County after a high-dollar contest against Democrat Ryan Olexia for the 23rd District, winning 58% of the votes.

State and national elections: 2020 Kentucky election Results

Republicans already control 28 seats of the 38-member Senate, and Tuesday's results would give them 30 members in January.

Nineteen state Senate seats were on the ballot Tuesday but seven candidates had no opposition, including Senate President Robert Stivers, a Manchester Republican, and Sen. Morgan McGarvey, a Louisville Democrat and Senate minority leader.

McDaniel's win Tuesday gives him a third, four-year term in the state Senate. He said he expects to devote much of the next legislative session as chairman of the Appropriations and Revenue Committee trying to craft a state budget amid projected revenue shortfalls because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"This session, probably all my energy will be on how to make this budget work," he said.

Beyond that, McDaniel said he remains interested in other issues including reforms to how pardons are granted, following problems highlighted by The Courier Journal with how former Gov. Matt Bevin issued a blizzard of controversial pardons in his final days in office last year.

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McDaniel raised $353,000 and got help from another $130,000 spent by GOPAC, a Republican federal super PAC. Olexia, a veterinarian, reported raising about $118,000, according to state campaign finance records.

Three candidates sought the Senate's 7th District that includes Franklin, Gallatin, Anderson, Owen and Woodford counties, with Graviss, a Democrat who served as a state representative for the area since 2019, losing to Southworth, a Republican with Tea Party support.

A third candidate in the race, Ken Carroll, who ran as an Independent candidate and is the son of the retiring Sen. Julian Carroll, got about 4% of the vote

Graviss outraised Southworth by about five times the $52,000 she raised for the general election.

Southworth, who had plastered Frankfort and other parts of the district with signs and billboards, got attention last year when she was fired from her job as an aide to former Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton by Bevin's chief of staff despite Hampton's objections.

And a Turner will continue to represent Eastern Kentucky's 29th District in a race in which the incumbent Democrat and his Republican challenger had the same name.

Longtime Democratic incumbent Sen. Johnny Ray Turner lost his bid for a sixth term in this Eastern Kentucky district that includes Floyd, Harlan, Knott and Letcher counties to Republican Johnnie L. Turner, a lawyer and former state representative from Harlan.

Democrats had been historically dominant in this district — so much that this was the first time in 20 years that Turner has ever faced a general election opponent.

Johnny Ray Turner is the Senate's Democratic minority caucus chairman.

Reach Deborah Yetter at dyetter@courier-journal.com or 502-582-4228. Find her on Twitter at @d_yetter.