Primary Pulse: Elections, Turnout and Big Headlines

This week’s round up focuses on primary election season across Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, highlighting key races, strong voter turnout in Ohio, and upcoming opportunities for Kentuckians to vote and get involved ahead of the May 19 primary.

The hosts review local ballot races, promote their voter guide and candidate interviews, and emphasize civic engagement. They also cover encouraging news on a continued decline in Kentucky overdose deaths and Governor Beshear’s action to ease gas prices.

Additional updates include major national developments, including recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions and their political impact. The episode closes with a reminder of the importance of election integrity and appreciation for poll workers.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Blue Dot, Northern Kentucky's premier political podcast. Brought to you by the Kent County Democratic Executive Committee. Welcome back to the Blue Dot Podcast for our weekly roundup, where we deliver you all the news you need to know in ten minutes or less. Thanks so much for joining. I'm Natalie McDonald.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

And I'm Brian Cale. Well, Natalie, another action-packed week in the world of politics. However, this week we want to focus first on the primary elections that are getting uh ready to take place across our region or have already taken place. Uh I actually had poll worker training yesterday, getting ready for the Kentucky primary on May 19th. And since it was also the first day of early voting, I was able to get that taken care of as well.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Yeah, look at you killing two birds with one stick.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

I voted. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

That's awesome. You need your sticker.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

I got one, huh? I should be wearing it.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Yes, you need to wear that. Um yes, because primary season is in full swing, and our neighbors to the north in Ohio and to the west in Indiana had their primaries this Tuesday. And there weren't that many surprises. Indiana had a few House and Senate level seats that were being voted on, while Ohio voters selected nominees for a governor, U.S. Senate, and other statewide offices.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Yes, uh, for Governor in Ohio, Amy Acton, and former Blue Dot Podcast guest David Pepper, we'll make up the Democratic ticket for Ohio governor against Vivek Ramaswamy and Ohio State Senate President Rob McCaulay as his running mate on the Republican side. And uh hey, in the Senate, Sherid Brown is back in the game as the Democrats are looking to flip that Senate seat. Uh, he is running against John Houston.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Yeah, and even without a contested primary, yesterday saw the highest midterm Ohio Democratic primary turnout since 2006. And that makes me so excited to see what kind of turnout that we'll have in Kentucky for that primary on May 19th. And that's again why our weekly roundups are gonna focus on the primaries coming up over the next two weeks because it's so important, and I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Yeah, I'm excited to see what the turnout's gonna be. I think it's gonna be huge. And um, as uh as mentioned, early voting started on Tuesday, May 6th, and there are so many events taking place for people to get involved uh to help get out the vote, G-O-T-V until then. My favorite event is happening this Saturday at the Jason and Bishop Memorial Dog Park in Covington for a Dems and Dogs at the Dog Park event. Although uh the blue dot mascots are cats, hey, we do love dogs, and we will be there to talk about upcoming events. You can uh get registered to vote, grab some Kenton Dems dog swag, and just have a great time.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Yes, and following the following weekend, there's going to be a get out the vote day of action happening all across the state. The Kenton event will be on Saturday and Sunday at George Roger Clark's Park on Riverside Drive in Cummington. So again, plenty of opportunities to make a difference. And for that dog park event, yeah, you don't need a dog. Um but you just need to be a dem.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

So that's good enough, yeah. Um and again, you can check out our voter guide at our website or Kentoncounty Democrats.org for all the information you could possibly want. And not only is there information on how to vote, but we have info on who is on the ballot. You can also listen or watch all of the candidate interviews that we have conducted on our website, our YouTube channel, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Yeah, and I just wanted to emphasize that we reached out to every Kenton Democratic candidate who had a primary, and everyone who responded was interviewed. The only exceptions were Charles Booker, Pamela Stevens, and Dale Rummens. But again, all candidates were contacted, and any of those non-responders were contacted multiple times.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah, we tried, uh we hoped to get as many as we could on and gave everybody a shot. And we appreciate those who joined us for interviews. So let's break down the ballot. First off, we have the U.S. Senate race. The nominees are Amy McGrath, Logan Sporsythe, Vincent Thompson, Pamela Stevenson, Dale Romans, and Charles Booker.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

And on the House side of things, those running to face Thomas Massey are Melissa Strange and Jesse Brewer. And there's only one county commissioner primary, and that is in the third district with Jordan Baldridge and John Bussey. And remember, you can vote for all county commissioner positions in the general, not just the one that you live in and in and in this primary as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Right. And then we have uh Kentucky House District 64, which touches Alexandria, Cold Spring, Covington, Edgewood, Erlanger, Independence, Taylor Mill, and Wilder. And that race will be seeing Nicholas Maharag and William Whaling facing off.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

And then lastly, we have Kentucky House District 69 with Brian Snap and Will Ann Stangle. And this district touches Crescent Springs, Crescu Hills, Edgewood, Erlanger, Elgemere, Fort Mitchell, Lakeside Park, and a little bit of independence. So a lot of grounds being covered in these two races.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Yep. So check out our interviews and our voter guide to make sure you are prepared to vote.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah, and it looks like our feature pod on addiction this week proved to be timely as Governor Bashir reported that Kentucky saw its fourth straight year of decline in overdose deaths with a 22.9% drop in 2025.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

I mean, that's a fantastic uh statistic. Unfortunately, uh, we did lose 1,110 Kentuckians to drug overdoses last year, but this is the lowest number recorded since 2014 and a 50% decline since 2021, which saw the highest number ever recorded in Kentucky.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

And that is just incredible. The governor credited much of what we covered on the podcast, including a broad coalition of community leaders, not for profit organizations, first responders, and advocates for the continued progress. You know, key efforts in 2025 that they worked for included numerous grants, Narcane availability, needle exchange programs, addiction services received through Medicaid and Kentucky's opioid response effort, as well as school-aged substance abuse prevention curriculum. It sure seems to be working.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Yeah, that's great. Governor Bashir also made headlines this week when he announced a state of emergency due to gas prices. This allows him to freeze the sales tax on gasoline and possibly reduce the price by 10 cents a gallon.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah, I was so glad to see this come across. It was really a good move. And he actually did something similar when gas prices were high in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. The difference there is that was not a war of choice.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

No, it wasn't. But uh hey, while we're talking Kentucky, did you bet on the Derby last Saturday? I mean, that race was a thriller for sure.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

I did. I love I I love betting on the Derby. I I did not win a dime, though.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

I usually bet, and uh, I was just uh too busy and didn't get around to it, but we did uh pick horses before the race, and nobody in our group picked Golden Tempo, though, however.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Well, you know, the Golden Tempo was amazing, darted from last to first in the race, and it was also marking a first for the sport when Sherry DeVoe became the first woman to ever train a derby winner. And it was also the first derby win for Puerto Rican jockey Jose Ortiz. And in his post-race interview, it was uh really an emotional one. It was really, really nice to see him talk about how he wished his grandfather had lived long enough to witness his derby win. So those are sort of some of the fun things uh that come along with the derby.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Yeah, those uh personal stories like those of uh DeVoe and Ortiz add so much to an iconic event like the Kentucky Derby. And hey, I love it when a long shot wins. And speaking of long shot wins, we had another one this week with the U.S. Supreme Court. Drug makers asked the Supreme Court to restore access to Miphopristone after a federal appeals court limited access nationwide. And, I mean, much to my shock and everyone else's, I'm sure, the Supreme Court paused the lower court's ruling, allowing that reinstated the requirement that the drug be dispensed only in person.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Yeah, and to be clear, while mifepristone is commonly referred to as the abortion pill, it is FDA approved to treat many other indications, including managing miscarriages, treating uterine fibrades, and endometriosis. And if you have either of those, you know how debilitating they can be. Um, it is also used to manage hyperglycemia and cushions syndrome, labor induction, and emergency contraception. So it's used for quite a few more things than just abortion.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Well, this is a great move on miphopristine by the Supreme Court, uh, but it was unfortunately countered by the earlier decision by the highest court in the land to effectively cancel the last remaining section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. And we discussed this last week, and right away we saw many red states immediately get working on redistricting to take advantage of the court's nakedly partisan decision.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Yeah, doing it so close to the primary election is causing a lot of wasted time, effort, money, and confusion. And in fact, in Louisiana, Republican Governor Jeff Landry suspended the state's U.S. House primary elections that were already underway. And he did this all to just carve up the last remaining black majority district. So it's quite likely that Louisiana will have zero black representation in a state where blacks make up one third of the population. And uh just as a side, I was just sworn in to be a member on the Central Ballot Accounting Committee for Kenton County. And while it's really amazing to see what goes into an election, it became apparent why Secretary of States in red, blue, and purple states fight so hard against the myth of election integrity and fraud from the people. When in fact the greatest threat that we have isn't from the people, it's from executive power doing things like this in Louisiana and presidents asking states to find eleven thousand seven hundred and eighty votes.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

You're working on that ballot side of elections, and I'm getting ready to work the polls for probably my fifth or sixth election. And I agree that getting involved in the mechanics of how elections work is, you know, not only super interesting, but you also learn how hard our local officials work to ensure election day runs smoothly and also how dedicated they are to making sure elections are secure, fair, and that all votes are counted. I mean, it's a tremendous effort, and our election workers deserve our gratitude. And uh, hey, with that in mind, I think that suspending an election that is already underway, such as that in Louisiana, is deplorable. What a slap in the face to all those who worked so hard to make elections work in the first place. And they're in kind of a pickle down there in Louisiana trying to figure out how to deal with the approximately forty two thousand votes that had already been cast prior to the governor halting the election. Not surprisingly, a bunch of lawsuits have been filed, and it's going to be up to the court system to untangle this mess. More lawsuits, more court intervention. Man, I mean, a lot of business sectors have been hurt in the Trump era, but the legal industry ain't one of them.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

That is true. That in the podcast business, going strong.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Right. Plenty of content.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Absolutely, plenty of content to work with, but we'll need to continue this next week, Brian, because our ten minutes are up. So that'll do it for this week's Roundup where the news is fast and the facts are free. Until next time, stay curious, keep the facts in focus. Never stop fighting for what matters. Peace out, everyone.