Are Republicans Pulling the Plug on the Kentucky Governor’s Race?

The Re­pub­lic­an Gov­ernors As­so­ci­ation is hold­ing off on run­ning ads on be­half of Ken­tucky Re­pub­lic­an gubernat­ori­al nom­in­ee Matt Bev­in, the As­so­ci­ated Press re­por­ted Monday. RGA spokes­man Jon Thompson told the AP the com­mit­tee is “ree­valu­at­ing what is best for us to do.”  

Ac­cord­ing to one D.C.-based Re­pub­lic­an op­er­at­ive with know­ledge of the com­mit­tee’s plans, the RGA wants to make sure Bev­in is “ser­i­ous about the race” be­fore go­ing back on the air, cit­ing what is said to be weak fun­drais­ing on Bev­in’s end, a lim­ited ef­fort at run­ning his own TV ads, and the con­tent of his first ad.   

As of last week, Bev­in had only put $140,000 be­hind a first TV buy, while the RGA has spent $3 mil­lion on his be­half in ads ty­ing Demo­crat Jack Con­way to Pres­id­ent Obama. Bev­in launched his first spot two weeks ago. The ad also tied Con­way to Obama, com­par­ing the two can­did­ates to foot­ball teams. Bev­in’s cam­paign said it was launch­ing “just in time for prime-time foot­ball games.” The ad raised eye­brows from Re­pub­lic­an ob­serv­ers be­cause of the re­dund­ant theme.  

“That’s not ne­ces­sar­ily maybe the smartest mes­sage. I think that’s something he might need to im­prove on a little bit, is what mes­sage he wants to send, what he’ll do as gov­ernor,” said the GOP op­er­at­ive.

The com­mit­tee isn’t throw­ing in the tow­el on the Ken­tucky race. They’re not rul­ing out go­ing back on the air at a later date. The Bev­in cam­paign said they plan on go­ing on the air again later this week.   

As for Bev­in’s fun­drais­ing, he could yet get a fin­an­cial boost from South Car­o­lina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is sched­uled to at­tend a fun­draiser for Bev­in Tues­day in Lex­ing­ton. Bev­in could also put more per­son­al money to­ward his bid. He spent more than $2.5 mil­lion of his own money ahead of the May GOP primary. Ken­tucky Demo­crats have cri­ti­cized Bev­in for de­cid­ing not to pub­licly re­lease his tax re­turns this sum­mer.