This story first appeared in the Kentucky Lantern, an outlet of States Newsroom. It's republished here as part of the Appalachian News Exchange reporting partnership to strength Kentucky journalism.
Gov. Andy Beshear’s super PAC is running an attack ad aimed at Ralph Alvarado, the Republican running for Kentucky’s 6th District Congressional seat.
The Democratic governor’s super PAC is called In This Together, and Friday it filed a report with the Federal Election Commission stating it paid $250,000 to a Washington-based political firm for “digital and television advertising” opposing Alvarado.
The ad focuses on Alvarado’s role as the running mate of former Gov. Matt Bevin when Bevin unsuccessfully sought reelection in 2019; it charges Alvarado did not condemn Bevin for a raft of controversial pardons the former governor issued after he lost reelection but before his term expired a month later.
Alvarado has consistently said he had no role in or knowledge of the pardons.
The $250,000 represents one of the largest outlays by In This Together since Beshear formed the super PAC right after he won reelection in 2023.
Alvarado is a Winchester doctor and former Kentucky state senator who won the Republican primary election last spring for the 6th District seat. He is opposed on the November ballot by Zach Dembo, a former federal prosecutor who won the Democratic primary.
The race is for the seat being vacated by longtime Republican Congressman Andy Barr, who is running to succeed the retiring U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell.
The district has been reliably Republican for more than a decade. Barr won the seat the last seven consecutive elections and by overwhelming margins in the last two cycles. Two non-partisan groups that analyze Congressional races say the district is likely to favor Alvarado this year, but Democrats say their polling shows the race is even.
Alvarado and Eric Hyers, Beshear’s top political strategist who oversees In This Together, traded accusations when asked by Kentucky Lantern about the ad and its focus on Alvarado’s relationship with the Bevin, who was recently arrested and sentenced to 60 days in jail for contempt of court charges in a child support case.
The ad features images of Alvarado with Bevin as a narrator says Alvarado “stood side by side with Bevin” and failed to condemn the former governor for his pardons.
Hyers said in reply to an email from Kentucky Lantern, “Alvarado stood with Bevin as he attacked Kentuckians and stayed silent while Bevin pardoned a murderer and child rapist. Alvarado has shown he lacks the courage to do the right thing …”
The Alvarado campaign responded Monday morning with a statement from saying, “Zach Dembo and his out-of-state Democratic hatchet men are lying about my record, and the public record proves it.”
Alvarado’s statement says in part, “I, along with the Senate Majority Caucus in Frankfort, condemned Matt Bevin’s grotesque pardons and opposed them publicly and in the strongest possible terms when they happened.”
Alvarado’s statement then repeated his campaign’s charge that Dembo’s record as a federal prosecutor shows he targeted “law enforcement officers at the height of the defund-the-police movement, including innocent officers who were ultimately acquitted in federal court.”
In 2024, a federal jury acquitted two former Kentucky State Police officers accused in an excessive force case over alleged arson at one of the police officer’s homes. Dembo was one of the federal prosecutors on the case.
Hyers did not respond to a question asking if In This Together will be spending more money this fall to help Dembo.
Beshear created In This Together to raise money for candidates and political causes he supports. It has contributed to Democratic candidates and committees in many states as Beshear explores a run for his party’s nomination for president in 2028.
But its biggest contributions have been made in Kentucky elections. In 2024, it gave $335,000 to a super PAC running independent ads supporting Pamela Goodwine’s election as a Kentucky Supreme Court Justice. Also that year, it gave $950,000 to a political committee that successfully opposed a constitutional amendment that would have allowed the state legislature to appropriate tax dollars to help private and charter schools.
The $250,000 spend in Dembo’s race represents the third largest contribution by In This Together to help a particular candidate or cause since it was formed.
