SHELBYVILLE, Ky. – Daniel Cameron’s political path looked bright and clear five years ago. He was Kentucky’s attorney general, with excellent prospects for re-election in 2023 and the best odds to succeed his mentor, Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, in 2026.
But Cameron decided to challenge Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, apparently preferring executive power in Frankfort to legislative wrangling in Washington – and perhaps because he saw Kentucky Republicans listening a lot more to Donald Trump than to McConnell. He won both those rivals’ endorsements, but lost by 5 percentage points.
Now, as Cameron runs for senator after all, at age 41, neither McConnell nor Trump have endorsed, and his fund-raising lags far behind that of his main opponents, U.S. Rep. Andy Barr and businessman Nate Morris – who is aided by a committee funded with $10 million from billionaire Elon Musk.
Cameron has a billionaire friend: Philadelphia financier Jeff Yass, who gave a pro-Cameron committee in the governor’s race $8 million. He’s funded $2 million of attacks on Barr, the insiders’ betting favorite, but is seen by some as leaning to Morris, not Cameron.
Cameron still leads in polls for the May 19 primary, thanks mainly to his statewide experience, but his campaign reported having only $630,000 at year’s end, less than a tenth of Barr’s balance. Morris reported $1.42 million after loaning his campaign $4.45 million.
In a primary that has been mainly about billionaires and big money, Cameron banks on having the race’s strongest core group of supporters, strong ties to local law-enforcement officers, and the most overtly religious approach of any major candidate ever for statewide office in Kentucky.
At a Jan. 29 coffee klatch in Shelbyville, Cameron repeatedly referred to his faith, at one point drawing from the Sermon on the Mount and modern Christian teaching: “I’m trying to be salt and light in this world and be the hands and feet of Christ, so you will never hear or see me disparage people.” (He said in an interview that the mock penny-stock certificate he used at the Fancy Farm Picnic to needle Morris was in keeping with the event’s tradition of “trying to get into it as best you can.”)
When a supporter asked him how he deals with disparate elements of his party, Cameron said, “The way I exchange and engage in dialogue with people is consistent with my relationship with Christ.”
In a one-on-one conversation with a fellow African American, a pastor who identified himself as a Democrat, Cameron said, “I don’t throw rhetorical bombs. . . I don’t have a caustic personality. I just try to engage with people, and some people are gonna like my answers, some people are not gonna like my answers, but I hope it comes across in a way that recognizes that, you know, we’re all human and that we all, at the end of the day, we want a better future for our kids. And again, if I can be the hands and feet of Christ while I’m here on this earth, then that’s what I’m doing.”
In our interview, Cameron acknowledged that he asks potential contributors to pray about his requests. That’s a line that fellow committed Christians might find routine, but one some people in Kentucky politics have found unusual. “When, you know, I talk to people, I, you know, I thank them for prayerfully considering, you know, helping us out and supporting,” he said. “My identity’s in Christ and that won’t change. . . That’s innately who I am.”
So, bereft of big money, Daniel Cameron campaigns on who he is. That could reflect a wish to get elected on his own terms, which usually doesn’t work out politically, but also a calculation; religious conservatives are some of the most highly motivated voters. And he told the coffee crowd, “No one . . . will get to the right of me in this race.”
But Cameron was talking about his support from Liberty Caucus legislators. In the interview, he was open to a temporary extension of the extra Obamacare subsidies passed under Joe Biden, and to a questioner who asked him if he would “stand up against the Big Food industry,” he said that’s a concern for his family and he would “be helpful in making sure our food is as safe as possible. . .Big business and big corporations have enough supporters in Washington, and I’m certainly gonna try to stand firm for our local industries and our small businesses.”
The race’s big-business candidate is Barr, and Cameron’s line is not one you would have heard him utter when he was in Mitch McConnell’s big-money orbit. As Kentucky’s longest-tenured senator serves his last year and his seat opens up, voters will re-deal Kentucky Republicans’ cards. But billionaires may, too.