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11 GOP candidates for Kentucky governor as Maddox withdraws, citing disappointing fundraising
The Republican field for Kentucky governor is down to 11 contenders as Rep. Savannah Maddox suspended her campaign, citing ?failure to raise enough money to compete.
According to the Kentucky Registry of Finance, Maddox’s campaign raised just over $210,000.?
Reports filed with KREF show that Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles has raised more than ??$875,000, former U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft has raised more than $751,000 and Attorney General Daniel Cameron has raised more than $708,000 in their gubernatorial campaigns.?
Other Republican candidates who have raised funds include Eric Deters with almost $95,000, Auditor Mike Harmon with almost $65,000, David Cooper with $5,500 and Robbie Smith with $2,000.?
Democratic incumbent Gov. Andy Beshear leads the way with more than $4.5 million in his war chest.
Candidates’ next quarterly fundraising reports are due Jan. 3.
In a Tuesday post on Facebook, Maddox, of Dry Ridge, said that she was “truly grateful for the outpouring of support that I have received over the past seven months” and that her campaign “understood that gubernatorial races cost a lot of money, and that it would require a tremendous amount of resources to make it possible to run when the time came.”
The statement said: “Despite traveling extensively across the Commonwealth, holding a multitude of fundraisers, making thousands of phone calls, sending direct mail, and turning over every rock possible to raise the money, it is clear that we will not have the resources we need to be successful in this campaign. It is for this reason I have decided to withdraw my name from consideration for the Republican nomination for Governor of Kentucky.
“I believe, to my core, that the citizens of Kentucky would choose to elect a candidate with the platform we have presented. However, I cannot allow the principles that we have fought for to seemingly be rejected at the ballot box simply because the candidate espousing them does not have the ability to self-fund a multimillion dollar campaign and lacks the financial resources to get the message out to all of Kentucky’s primary voters.”
Maddox vowed to “continue to shake the very foundation of the political establishment through my service in the Kentucky General Assembly.”
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McKenna Horsley
McKenna Horsley covers state politics for the Kentucky Lantern. She previously worked for newspapers in Huntington, West Virginia, and Frankfort, Kentucky. She is from northeastern Kentucky.
Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.