FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - One of every 10 of Kentucky’s 3.1 million registered voters is expected to vote in Tuesday’s primary elections.
Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes said the low turnout forecast is based on about 5,100 absentee votes cast and results from previous elections.
Attorney General Jack Conway is likely to win the Democratic primary for governor. Republicans Matt Bevin, James Comer, Hal Heiner and Will T. Scott are all vying for the Republican nomination. Incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear cannot seek re-election because of term limits.
Tuesday’s elections feature contested primaries among both political parties for statewide offices, including treasurer, attorney general and agricultural commissioner. But the governor’s race is usually the key driver of voter turnout.
The last time Kentucky had an open seat for governor was 2003, when 17 percent of registered voters participated in the primary. But that race featured four-way contests in both of the state’s major political parties. This year, Conway appears to be cruising to an easy primary victory against little known and little funded candidate Geoff Young.
Democrats make up 53 percent of the state’s registered voters while Republicans account for nearly 39 percent. Kentucky has closed primaries, meaning only registered voters for that party can participate.
Grimes said Tuesday’s election is trending more toward the 2011 primary, where three Republicans battled for the nomination while Beshear did not have opposition. Turnout in that race was 10.4 percent.
“I’m hopeful it will be higher,” Grimes said. “It costs Kentucky the same regardless of whether there is 80 percent turnout or 8 percent turnout to open our 3,700 precincts across the commonwealth.”
Grimes said the key to boosting voter turnout is “engaging the public positively.” The Republican primary has been contentious, with outside groups and some campaigns paying for negative TV ads across the state. Grimes said those ads tend to discourage people from voting, citing Kentucky’s 2014 U.S. Senate race as an example. Grimes and U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell spent tens of millions of dollars on advertising in that race, mostly negative. That total does not include spending from outside groups.
“It gave them a bad taste for government and most importantly what government can and should be doing for people,” she said.
McConnell defeated Grimes by more than 15 percentage points. University of Kentucky political science professor Stephen Voss said researchers have not been able to definitively say whether negative advertising hurts turnout.
“It’s still mired in debate as far as the research literature goes,” he said.
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