KFTC 2012 Voter Empowerment Landscape Preview

KFTC's Voter Empowerment program in a given year focuses on voter Registration, Education and Mobilization efforts to make our Democracy more sound so that we can tend to come to better decisions as a Commonwealth.  We believe that large percentages of our state tend to get left our of our Democracy, so we focus our efforts on youth communities, people of color communities and low income communities.  We also try to make sure that KFTC's campaign issues are a focus of debate and discussion between the candidates. 

Tactics we use to reach people include door-to-door work, community tabling, voter guides, www.KentuckyElection.org, turnout phone banks, mailings, media, social networking, and special events. 

Some key dates for the 2012 KY Election cycle include:
April 23rd - Primary Voter Registration Deadline
May 22nd - Primary Election
Oct 9th - Voter Registration Deadline
Oct 11th - VP Presidential Debate in Danville, KY
Nov 6th - General Election

Offices up for election in Kentucky this year include President, six congressional seats, odd numbered state senate districts, all state house districts, city council races in all cities and mayoral races in some, plus a few other races like commonwealth attorney. 

The Republican Presidential Primary might well still be underway by the time of the Kentucky Primary, which is interesting. 

According to the State Board of Elections:
25 candidates have filed for 6 US Representative seats
44 candidates have filed for 19 KY Senate seats
184 candidates have filed for 100 KY Representative seats

These numbers are still at least slightly inflated by the redistricting fight earlier this year.  For example, David Rhodes is still listed as an opponent of Senator Kathy Stein despite living in Mt. Sterling, far outside of the bounds of the Lexington Senate district.  Most candidates who are ineligible because they live outside of districts have been removed from the list, though. 

Some interesting races include, but are not limited to:

US House / Congress
- A 9-way race for the 4th District seat vacated by Geoff Davis (R)
- Kenneth Stepp (D) and Michael Ackerman (D) are challenging Hal Rodgers (R) for his 5th District Congressional seat.
- A 5-way race for the 6th district US Representative seat held currently by Rep Ben Chandler (D).

Kentucky Senate
- Senator Damon Thayer (R) has opponents both in the primary election (Rick Holsetter) and the General (David Holcomb)
- Carroll Hubbard (D) v. Stan Humphries (R) for the 1st district Senate Seat recently vacated by Sen Ken Winters (R). 
- A 7-way race for the 15th District Senate seat vacated by Sen Vernie McGaha (R).
- Four Democrats are running for the 19th Senate District, vacated by Tim Shaughnessy (D)

Kentucky House
- Jim Gooch (D) has opposition from James Nance (D) in district 12.
- Charlie Hoffman (D) is challenging Ryan Quarles (R) for the 62nd district House seat.
- 4-way Republican Primary race for 80th vacated by Danny Ford (R)
- A 2-way General Election race to replace Bill Farmer in the 88th district.

With all of this in mind, KFTC is starting to formulate our 2012 Voter Empowerment plan in communication with members throughout the state.  We'll be in touch as that takes shape over the next several weeks, espeically as it relates to the upcoming primary election.