FRANKFORT — Thinking beyond this new year to 2027, Kentucky Republican Michael Adams is weighing a complicated question — could he be the type of candidate who gets Kentuckians to focus on the state’s challenges instead of the national politics of the day.
Adams, who was the top vote-getter in 2023 statewide elections and carried all but two of the state’s 120 counties, is about halfway through his second term as secretary of state, Kentucky’s top elections official. The 49-year-old from McCracken County earned praises from Republicans and Democrats alike on his election policies, but he told the Kentucky Lantern in a recent interview that he cares deeply about other issues too, like the state’s housing shortage and bettering education.
At the national level, “there’s only one brand” for the GOP, Adams said, but a Kentucky governor’s race is different.
“I feel like at the state level, there’s a little more room for a Republican official or candidate to have an identity of his own, to have a brand,” he said. “There’s a little more room to be a nice guy, and to be modest in your style, and to be substantive.”
Adams said Kentucky Republicans should not “nominate somebody for a governor who is going to be seen as angry or partisan or difficult or unpleasant, nasty.”
Controversies beset the last two Republican governors, he said, tarnishing their images, and both were defeated by Democrats named Beshear.
Kentuckians, Adams said, “want a nice guy to be the governor, to solve problems, to stay focused on state issues, to be the kind of person you can be proud of when there’s a disaster.”
“I think people, including Republicans, want a reasonable, decent person who will go do the job, and I feel like there’s an appetite for that, and we see that in who wins these races,” Adams told the Lantern. “But it also comes down to: Would I have the funding available to get that message out right and remind people of what they like about me, and can I get voters to care about the stuff that I care about? I care about civics. I care about housing. I care about education. If we’re voting on stuff that’s not really about our state government, then I shouldn’t win.”
How will Kentuckians view Trump next year?
Some Kentucky political observers think Adams could have a chance if he decided to run for governor. Trey Grayson, a former Republican secretary of state, said that he jokes “that we secretaries of state are good enough to become credible candidates in our primary, but never good enough to win it.” After leaving office, he was his party’s nominee for U.S. Senate, as was former Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, and they did not win. Bob Babbage, another Democratic secretary of state, lost a primary bid for governor in 1995.
Yet, nationwide, secretaries of state have moved on to higher office. Grayson pointed to Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who was previously a secretary of state.
Adams has had “a pretty high profile, probably the highest profile any of us have ever had in performing our job,” Grayson said. In Adams’ first term, he had to navigate access to elections amid the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, which was also a presidential election year.
Also while he’s not the “most MAGA” Republican, Grayson noted that Adams has previously endorsed President Donald Trump and supported policies Trump cares about, like enacting photo ID laws for voting.
“I think he’s got some credibility, having won a couple times,” Grayson said. “But the question becomes: can he convince people that he’s the kind of Republican that they want? And he won’t know until he tries.”
Danny Briscoe, a Democratic political consultant, told the Lantern that Adams has earned respect across the aisle because he “hasn’t let politics interfere” with his job.
Briscoe added that nationwide, politics are changing, pointing to the election of Zohran Mamdani as the next mayor of New York City with more than 50% of the vote. That “wouldn’t have fit the bill of any previous mayoral election that I can remember,” Briscoe said.
Briscoe said U.S. Rep. James Comer would be “the Trump disciple” of a hypothetical 2027 GOP primary. The congressman has previously said he is interested in the 2027 race.
However, if Trump’s popularity in Kentucky changes by then, that could be a disadvantage for Trump-aligned candidates, Briscoe said. The president has won elections in the Bluegrass state for nearly a decade, though he will not be on the ballot in 2027 and Republicans are hoping to maintain control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections.
“Whether (Adams) can get elected or not depends on the mood of this state, and I think it’s a little too early to judge that, because a lot of it depends on Trump’s positives and negatives,” Briscoe said. “If he’s still popular, Comer would be the one to beat. If he’s unpopular, maybe Adams could do it.”
Legislative session
Heading into what will be the final budget legislative session of his last term as secretary of state, Adams said he would focus on things that can be improved, such as increasing state funding to county clerks, strengthening laws around impersonating election officials, and ensuring funding for the Safe At Home program which protects victims of domestic violence.
Kentucky county clerks have hoped to attract more poll workers in recent election cycles. A big issue that often comes up is increasing the pay for poll workers, Adams said. A state formula that determines how much money county clerks get for elections “was set in the ’80s, and it’s never been adjusted for inflation,” he added.
“I’m conservative. I don’t like to spend money, but it costs money to pay poll workers, and it’s hard to get people in the labor force today,” Adams said. “And when I was a poll worker 30 years ago in McCracken County, they’d pay me 100 bucks, and they pay the same 100 bucks today, 30 years later.”
Adams previously asked lawmakers to make it illegal in Kentucky to impersonate an election official, and expressed concern about a political consultant using robocalls to mimic President Joe Biden during the 2024 primary. The calls encouraged Democratic voters in New Hampshire to not cast ballots in the primary. The consultant later received a $6 million fine from the Federal Communications Commission and faced criminal charges in New Hampshire because of a state law that makes it a crime to impersonate a candidate.
Adams said that while he doesn’t know if voters fell for the scam, “it showed us what people are capable of doing.”
A 2023 law established the Safe at Home program, which allows victims of domestic violence to hide their addresses when registering to vote without a protective order from a judge. It also allows the state Capitol to be the address on public records and lets those moving from out of state easily join the program.
Participation in the program has grown to more than 1,000 people, Adams said, but a small amount of money goes toward funding it each year. The dollars come out of a joint fund from fines for breaking laws and are split multiple ways.
Adams would “like to have a stable fund for that,” and doesn’t think an extra appropriation would be needed, but his office needs authorization from lawmakers to touch restricted budget funds to reallocate dollars to the program.
One issue he hadn’t yet decided on pursuing this session was pushing again for improving civics education in Kentucky. His office previously released a civic health assessment of the state, giving Kentucky a C grade as residents are generally more knowledgeable about civics than the average American, but there’s still room to improve.
Adams made national headlines in November after sharing on social media that his office was getting calls asking why polls were closed in Kentucky. The state had no statewide elections in 2025.
“We’re getting calls about polls being closed. They are closed because we do not have elections today. Kentucky votes next year,” Adams wrote on X. “You cannot vote today in Kentucky for the mayor of New York City or the Governor of Virginia. Sorry.”
Adams told the Lantern that those calls “proved my point that it’s getting bad out there.” It also showed that more and more people aren’t getting local news from local journalists, he added. They instead are reading about elections and national news from elsewhere in the country.
Adams previously called on lawmakers to implement civics education requirements for public school students, which led to instituting a graduation requirement for students to pass either a citizenship test or civics course. Adams said the law ended up being a “really watered down bill that just didn’t make a difference.”
Adams said he’s talked about the issue with lawmakers since then, but keeps hearing that it’s not a high priority for parents who contact lawmakers about issues.
“Of all the things people are talking to legislators about, it’s just not on the list. It’s just not a thing that people are talking about right now,” Adams said. “There’s so many other things that compete, so we’ve not decided if we’re going to make a push for it or not. If so we’ll probably decide in the middle of the session.”
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Written by McKenna Horsley. Cross-posted from the Kentucky Lantern.
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