Kentucky’s Republican secretary of state, who had earned widespread praise for increasing his state’s voter turnout during the coronavirus pandemic and for expanding opportunities to vote, won his primary on Tuesday.
Michael Adams faced a primary challenge from two Republicans who align themselves with the growing faction within the GOP who believe elections are frequently rigged and stolen. Adams will now face Buddy Wheatley, a Democrat and former state representative, in November.
During his time in office, Adams has shot down conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and defended his state’s election system from claims of fraud, a stance that he said earlier this week could cost him his job.
In an interview, Adams said it would “absolutely” be worth it if he lost the race to have defended and expanded Kentucky’s elections, but he was hopeful that Kentucky Republicans understood the ways his reforms had benefited them.
“I’m not surprised that I have a primary, but I also think in my gut that if these Republicans utilized early voting and absentee voting, then they’re not going to hold it against me that I implemented those things,” he said.
The race marks the latest in what is likely to be a long series of primary contests in which more moderate, mainstream Republicans are challenged by candidates to their right who are allied with Trump and who deny the results of the 2020 election.
“There won’t be a GOP primary that doesn’t have election denialism as part of it,” said Ben Ginsberg, a conservative elections lawyer, at a recent conference for election officials in Washington DC.
The Republicans challenging Adams were Stephen Knipper, an information technology project manager who has twice run unsuccessfully for secretary of state, and Allen Maricle, a former state legislator. Knipper is endorsed by Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO, who has spread conspiracy theories about Trump winning the 2020 election. Knipper has also said he has serious doubts about the 2019 victory of Kentucky’s Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, and alleges that voting machines were hacked.
Maricle has said he disagrees that the state’s elections are rigged, but he has maintained that voter fraud affects them.
Both challengers wanted Kentucky to join the eight states that have recently left the Electronic Registration Information Center (Eric), a national database used by a majority of states to compare voter rolls and keep them accurate. Fueled by false claims and conspiracy theories about the network’s ties to the liberal donor George Soros, Republicans who once praised Eric now claim it does not protect election integrity.
Adams has defended Kentucky’s participation in Eric and has said Kentucky will remain a member as long as it is beneficial and worth the dues. “Prior to the last couple of months,” when critical states have pulled out, “Eric has been a godsend for us in helping us get people off the rolls,” he said.
Since taking office in 2020, Adams has worked with Beshear and the GOP-controlled legislature to expand absentee and early voting. During the height of the pandemic, he worked to open countywide polling supercenters in large venues. The work helped Kentucky see a primary turnout record in 2020 and earned him praise from Democrats.
Adams said his biggest reason for running was to protect the expansions he has made to voting.
“I do think if I get beat, that will send a message to other Republicans in the legislature, especially, that doing things the way I’ve done them is bad politics, and I’m afraid they’ll dismantle expanded voting and absentee voting for political reasons.”
That desire overpowers his reluctance to continue serving in a job he calls “miserable” given the environment of threats and harassment for election officials.
“I didn’t especially want to run again,” he added, “but I felt like I had to do it to protect what we’ve done.”
