Six candidates hoping to succeed Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Barr as the next congressional representative from Central Kentucky participated in a debate on KET Monday night.
The Republicans, State Rep. Ryan Dotson and retired pharmaceutical executive Greg Plucinski, in their debate, largely agreed on issues — such as President Donald Trump’s authority to begin a military conflict in Iran, and fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
After that, the Democrats — former federal prosecutor Zach Dembo, former Lexington councilman David Kloiber, businesswoman Erin Petrey and former state Rep. Cherlynn Stevenson — took to the stage. They also largely agreed on the issues — like opposing the war in Iran — but disagreed on some how to reach some solutions, particularly when it came to healthcare coverage.
Barr, the current seat-holder, has represented Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District since 2013. He is currently running for U.S. Senate. The district is seen as the most “purple” of Kentucky’s congressional districts as it includes the blue city of Lexington and parts of rural red Kentucky.
KET invited candidates based on previously released candidate criteria, such as their campaigns must have a public website or social media account with policy statements and net contributions of $100,000 on recent finance reports.
Another Republican candidate, Ralph Alvarado, was invited but his campaign manager told the Kentucky Lantern he could not attend because of a scheduling conflict. He is a former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Health and a former Kentucky state senator. Andy Westberry, the campaign manager, added that GOP voters have had other opportunities to hear from candidates before the May 19 primary, such as forums, meet-and-greets and a previously televised debate.
“With a dominating double-digit lead in the polls and a massive fundraising advantage, participating would do nothing more than give increasingly desperate, deeply flawed candidates one last chance to distract from the obvious: their campaigns are irrelevant and clearly flatlining,” Westberry said.
Alvarado’s campaign was “grateful to Renee Shaw and the entire KET team for the invitation and for consistently providing fair, balanced, and professional coverage to both Republicans and Democrats,” Westberry added, and looked “forward to working with them in the future.”
Republicans
State Rep. Ryan Dotson and retired pharmaceutical executive Greg Plucinski agreed on things like election integrity and establishing term limits for members of Congress, during Monday’s debate.
Dotson, a pastor from Winchester, called himself a “social conservative” as he has backed legislation in the General Assembly to prevent transgender women and girls from competing on their schools’ sports teams and would back a similar ban at the national level. Plucinski, who is from Nicholasville, repeatedly pointed to his business background throughout the evening, and called himself a non-traditional candidate, as this is his first run for office.
Shaw, who moderated both debates, asked both candidates about their views on the 2020 presidential election toward the end of the hour. Claims of widespread voter fraud in the election have been repeatedly debunked, and Congress later certified Biden’s win despite Trump supporters attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“I do not believe Joe Biden won that election fairly. I believe it was a rigged election, and that is my personal belief,” Dotson said. He added that he believed issues arose from mail-in ballots being dropped off after the election and because the election happened during the pandemic.
“I don’t believe that for a second,” Plucinski said about the 2020 results. “I don’t believe that for a second that that happened. I don’t think many people do, and that’s where I stand on that.”
Plucinski said he did believe Trump won the 2024 election because “he was so popular everywhere he went.”
Both Dotson and Plucinski have signed a pledge saying they would support term limits for members of Congress. Plucinski said he supported the idea because he does not want to “have a career doing it” and believes that was the original intention of the U.S. Constitution. Dotson said he would be able to “hit the ground running” to accomplish his goals with relationships he has already made in Washington, D.C.
The Republicans largely agreed on Trump’s war in Iran, but showed some differences. Plucinski and Dotson both avoided calling it a “war.”
“We didn’t go to war. So, I don’t think Congress needs to be involved,” Plucinski said. He called the military action an “incursion,” as Congress must approve declarations of war.
“We’re in a conflict, and the President’s well within his rights to do what he has done,” Dotson said.
Both of the candidates agreed that if the plan needed Congressional approval before the U.S. acted, then it would alert foreign adversaries to American military action.
Democrats
In their hour, the Democratic candidates largely agreed as well, but showed some differences when it came to healthcare. Early on, Dembo said he did not fully agree with the idea of Medicare for all. The other candidates, Kloiber, Petrey and Stevenson, said they supported it.
Dembo explained he would be concerned about Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. overseeing “a government-sponsored healthcare plan.” Dembo added he would favor a public option, like one available for members of the military, that Americans could choose to join.
“I think for those folks who like their employer sponsored health care plans, we should not be forcing them off of that in favor of the federal government overreaching into that,” Dembo said.
In response, Petrey said “it’s pretty bad to say that just because Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is in charge of HHS, that we should not be doing the right thing for our people.” She said politicians have been “paid off by the health insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, pharmacy benefit managers” and then pointed to her own experience when she was being treated for Crohn’s disease. She said after she got an IV in her arm, the next person she saw wasn’t a doctor, but someone from the billing department.
“The way that we revitalize this country, especially rural and small town America, is taking that burden and that insane amount of money that you have to pay just so that health insurance executives can get their pay is absurd — we must restore health care as a human right,” Petrey said.
Kloiber said he supports a public option for health insurance “that leads towards Medicare for all in a way that’s sustainable.”
“Let’s address the bumps along the road,” he added. “You can’t get to a goal without a plan, and you can’t start that without having something to present.”
Stevenson also called for a public option and said she has long prioritized lowering healthcare costs for Kentuckians. She referred to when her husband had a pulmonary embolism when both of them were in a waiting period for new insurance to kick in.
Stevenson said if Democrats take control of the House after the midterm elections, “we’ve got to be sure that those Medicaid cuts that are in that One Big Ugly Bill are stopped,” referring to the GOP-backed One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Stevenson also said Affordable Care Act subsidies should be reinstated.
All the Democratic candidates agreed on supporting the idea of a “living wage,” or a minimum wage for a worker to afford basic necessities while working 40 hours a week, opposed the war in Iran, and signaled they favored raising taxes on wealthy Americans.
Immigration was also a hot-button issue during the Democrats’ hour. Trump has vowed to remove people without permanent legal status throughout his 2024 campaign, but Americans have criticized the aggressive use of federal ICE agents in recent months. In January, ICE agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, sparking criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, including Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul.
Petry called for abolishing ICE throughout the night. She added the country does need “sweeping immigration reform” but a pathway to citizenship must be “humane” and focus on “due process.”
“America once was this beacon on a hill, a place where people were so proud of being a melting pot, and we need to return to that and make sure that people are not lost in the system,” she said. “Create a pathway of citizenship, but also make sure that we remember that we must stand for laws and human rights above everything else.”
Kloiber said he would like to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE. He said the department, which was established after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, was created when “there was a lot of fear and concern, and it’s just become a Frankenstein that continues to create more Frankenstein monsters.” He added he does believe the country needs “immigration reform top to bottom” and allows for people who submit their forms and work with the process to not wait years for citizenship.
“Every single person who has committed a violent crime should go through the justice system,” Kloiber said, adding that immigrants who do not have legal status and have committed a violent crime “absolutely should be removed.”
Dembo agreed, but “the problem is that’s not what we’re seeing from the immigration policy of this administration.” Most ICE detainees do not have a criminal history, and federal agents have detained U.S. citizens.
“ICE, as we know it, absolutely is not working,” Stevenson said, adding that agents are “violating people’s constitutional rights” and are “unaccountable.
“We need strong borders. We need to enforce the immigration laws that we currently have, but DHS should not be funded until ICE is reined in and returned to its normal role,” she added. Stevenson said both Democrats and Republicans should “sit down and work out and figure out a better path to citizenship
“If folks are coming here escaping terrible, terrible situations at home, they’re here seeking asylum, and they want to be productive members of society and just give their family a better chance, we absolutely want and welcome those people, but there is no way that we should be having violent criminals that are here illegally on our on on our streets at all, and so we absolutely need to still be getting rid of those folks,” Stevenson said.
Dembo, Petrey, and Stevenson all agreed they would support the Democratic nominee.
When he was asked, Kloiber said the candidates “all want the same thing, and we’re not going to win in November unless we have the message and the support of everyone,” which means being able to speak across the aisle to other voters and “changing how people view Democrats by giving them something to vote for instead of something vote against.”
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Written by McKenna Horsley. Cross-posted from the Kentucky Lantern.
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