Alvarado, Kentucky's first Hispanic state legislator, echoes Trump in launching a congressional bid
Alvarado, a medical doctor and the son of immigrants, will compete for Kentucky's 6th Congressional District seat now occupied by Republican Rep. Andy Barr, who is in a hotly contested race to succeed Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former longtime Republican Senate leader, in next next year's midterm election.
Seen as a rising conservative star during his years in the Kentucky Senate, Alvarado pledged to align with President Donald Trump's 'America First' agenda as he kicked off his congressional campaign.
'Kentuckians are fed up with open borders, sky-high prices and unelected bureaucrats who trample our freedoms,' Alvarado said in a statement. 'I'm running for Congress to fight for working families, stop the invasion at our southern border once and for all, and fight the woke agenda.'
Republican state Reps. Ryan Dotson and Deanna Gordon entered the House race earlier, also touting their conservative credentials and setting up the prospect of a competitive primary next spring.
The Democratic field also grew Thursday, with former federal prosecutor Zach Dembo entering the campaign. Dembo, also a former policy adviser for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, said his focus will include creating good-paying jobs, fighting back against Medicaid cuts and opposing tariffs that he said are hurting crucial Kentucky industries.
'Central Kentucky deserves to have a representative in Washington who stands up for families, works to lower their cost of living, expands access to affordable healthcare and protects their safety,' Dembo said in a statement.
National Democrats list Kentucky's 6th among dozens of districts nationally that they're targeting in hopes of winning back the narrowly divided House in 2026. Other Democratic candidates for the Kentucky congressional seat include ex-state Rep. Cherlynn Stevenson and David Kloiber, a former Lexington city councilman.
Alvarado's campaign said he preserved his Kentucky ties while working in Tennessee, noting that he maintained his longtime home in Clark County in the district and continued to do medical work in the district. He typically returned home multiple times each month.
He was the first Hispanic member of Kentucky's legislature, his campaign said, having been first elected in 2014. He has said his immigrant parents made big sacrifices to get him a good education. His father was from Costa Rica, and his mother is from Argentina.
Alvarado ran for statewide office in Kentucky as then-Gov. Matt Bevin's running mate in 2019, but Bevin lost his reelection bid to Beshear. Alvarado left the Kentucky Senate to step into the role as Tennessee's health department commissioner in Republican Gov. Bill Lee's administration in 2023.
Lee last week announced Alvarado's departure from the state health department, saying Alvarado 'faithfully served Tennesseans throughout his tenure.'
Alvarado's role in promoting Bevin during the 2019 campaign could surface as an issue in next year's congressional race as Bevin's pugnacious style turned off many Kentucky voters.
The 6th District stretches from central Kentucky's bluegrass region to the Appalachian foothills. It flipped between Democratic and Republican representation for decades, but Barr has locked down the seat for the GOP for more than a decade, fending off a tough Democratic challenger in 2018.
Since then, the GOP-led legislature removed Democratic-leaning Frankfort, Kentucky's capital city, from the 6th District during the most recent round of redistricting, seemingly making it a steeper challenge for Democrats. The district includes Democratic-trending Lexington, the state's second-largest city, and covers multiple rural counties that are Republican strongholds.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
a few seconds ago
- Business Insider
A congressional stock trading ban just got closer to becoming law
A bill to ban politicians from trading stocks in office moved one step closer to a vote — but only after an hour of intense argument and insults between Republicans. The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee passed the bill on an 8-7 vote. All Democrats voted for it, while every Republican voted against it except one: Josh Hawley of Missouri, who sponsored the bill. The legislation is broadly similar to a bill that passed the same committee last summer, but never received a Senate floor vote. This version would ban members of members of Congress, the president, and the vice president from buying stocks immediately upon enactment, and would block them from selling stocks beginning 90 days after that. It would then require lawmakers to divest entirely from their stock holdings at the beginning of their next term, and it would require the president and vice President to do so beginning in 2029 — after President Donald Trump's current term. It also would not allow for blind trusts, which sets it apart from other similar bills. "I think we have to accept that the American people think that all of us, Democrats and Republicans, are using our positions and our access to enrich ourselves," Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan said during the hearing. "People don't believe that we are here for the right reasons. We have a problem." It is unclear when or if the bill would become law — the next step would be a Senate vote. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said that he believes current disclosure laws are sufficient, while House Speaker Mike Johnson has expressed cautious support for a ban. Trump has said that he would sign a congressional stock trading ban into law. The bill ultimately passed despite the furious objections of several GOP senators on the committee — and tense intraparty debate. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who was the CEO of a plastics manufacturing company before he was elected to the Senate, argued that the stock divestiture requirements would discourage businesspeople from seeking federal office. "We make it very unattractive for people to step up to the plate," Johnson said. "This piece of legislation, really, it's legislative demagoguery." Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the chairman of the committee, said that existing laws banning insider trading and requiring stock trade disclosures were sufficient, calling Hawley's bill a "solution looking for publicity." Another key issue was how the bill would apply to the president and vice president — it would block them from buying and selling stocks, but wouldn't force them to divest any holdings during their current terms. Trump owns individual stocks, while Vance divested from his individual stock holdings during his Senate tenure. Paul argued that the bill would "protect Donald Trump" by not requiring divestiture before 2029, arguing that provision demonstrated that the bill was "crummy." Meanwhile, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said the bill was an attack on Vance and Trump. "Trump has gone through unbelievable hell," Scott told reporters after the hearing, referring to his indictments and impeachments. He said the bill would "allow the Democrats to go after the President of the United States." Much of the hearing was taken up by Hawley sparring with fellow Republicans on the committee. After Scott raised a question about a provision of the bill applying to illiquid assets, Hawley snapped back at him, pointing out that he supported last year's bill. "It's the same one you voted for last year," Hawley said. At one point, during a tense exchange with Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma over the bill's elimination of blind trusts, Hawley made a passing reference to Scott's wealth. "I practice what I preach. I don't have individual stocks, I don't trade in stocks," Hawley said as Scott sat beside him. "I'm not a billionaire, unlike others on this committee." Scott, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, is one of the wealthiest members of Congress. Minutes later, he said it was "disgusting" to criticize lawmakers for their wealth. "I don't know when in this country it became a negative to make money," Scott said as he described his modest upbringing. "This idea that we're going to attack people because they make money is wrong. It's absolutely wrong."
Gizmodo
2 minutes ago
- Gizmodo
Elon Musk Pushes View That Women Are ‘Anti-White' Because They're ‘Weak'
Elon Musk has long shared extremist views on X, the social media platform he purchased in late 2022. But every once in a while, his activity on the platform is so extreme that it can still manage to shock even the most jaded Musk observer. That's what happened Wednesday when the billionaire Tesla CEO retweeted an account that insisted women are 'built to be traded' and are 'anti-white' because they're physically weak. The social media exchange started on Tuesday when Musk replied to a tweet from an account called Morgonn, who asked, 'Why do liberal white women hate white people so much?' Musk replied, 'They've been programmed to do so by their teachers and the media.' An account named Dr. Insensitive Jerk quote-tweeted Musk with a long screed that pushes the idea women are intended to be 'traded' between tribes and that white women in particular conform to 'dominant culture,' to stay safe because they're 'physically weak.' The tweet insists women in the West are 'raised in an anti-white culture,' and that's why white women supposedly hate white people. 'In the long term, they will be forced to remember they are white. Better they are reminded of that by white men, because the alternative is not so gentle,' the tweet ends, suggesting that anyone who isn't white is physically abusive to women. Musk retweeted the rant from Dr. Insensitive Jerk. Extremists will often try to argue their worldview as being grounded in some field like evolutionary psychology, implying that it's all part of the natural order. But in case that tweet's use of 'IMO' or 'in my opinion' isn't clear enough, there's no evidence for anything this account claims beyond his own opinion. It feels right to the misogynists, so it must be accurate. The account Dr. Insensitive Jerk appears to frequently share racist ideas, including a tweet from Sept. 2024 that reads, 'Blacks stick with the Democrat party for the same reason your cat sticks with you. Free food.' Another tweet suggested that Black people should be segregated from white people in the U.S. Musk frequently shares far-right ideas on X, the platform he purchased in October 2022 and reshaped into the hub of extremism we know today. The billionaire allowed extreme voices to be amplified on the site in such a way that literal Nazis often go viral on the site in a way that wasn't permitted before Musk took over. Musk, who gave two Nazi-style salutes on the day of President Donald Trump's second inauguration, even invited Nick Fuentes back to the platform after he was banned for hate speech in July 2021. Fuentes is a Holocaust denier who openly admits his hatred for Jewish people. Other extremist voices welcomed back to X have included conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, misogynist podcaster Andrew Tate, former Trump advisor Roger Stone, and anti-Muslim bigot Laura Loomer, just to name a few. There is no question for anyone who spends even 10 minutes on X that it's become a safe haven for extremism—the kind of site that used to be confined to the darker corners of the internet. But Musk has helped his far-right ideas go mainstream. And even if he no longer officially works for the federal government as the head of DOGE, he can still influence how the world operates by controlling a major source of news for large chunks of the world's population. None of Musk's rhetoric is new. In November 2023, the billionaire replied to an antisemitic tweet with, 'You have said the actual truth,' finally kicking off a debate in mainstream circles about whether Musk really was an extremist. The tweet, unlike many others Musk has appeared to regret, was never deleted. But Musk visited Auschwitz with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a couple of months later, which the media sometimes portrayed as a kind of apology. Musk denies being antisemitic. As it happens, November 2023 is also when the first Cybertruck deliveries started. Musk also defended Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams after he promoted the idea of racial segregation. Adams called Black Americans a 'hate group,' and said that white people should 'get the hell away' from them on his YouTube channel, leading to the cartoonist being dropped by his distributor. But Musk insisted it was members of the media who were racist against white people. With the emergence of generative artificial intelligence tools like Grok, Musk also has the opportunity to shape the way that things are fact-checked on his platform. And it seems like every time he tries to tinker with his robot, he makes it even more extreme. There was the incident back in May when Grok started randomly talking about supposed 'white genocide' of farmers in South Africa, something that seemed to follow a fact-check that Musk didn't like about the topic. And then there was the day, earlier this month, when Grok went full Nazi, praising Hitler and advocating for a second Holocaust against Jews. Gizmodo attempted to reach Elon Musk through the X press office. We'll update this article if we hear back.
Hamilton Spectator
2 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Crown attorneys issue rare public response to Pierre Poilievre attack on ‘freedom convoy' prosecution
A provincial prosecutors' association has taken the rare step of issuing a public response to what it describes as attacks 'on the independence of the prosecutorial system' and the 'rule of law.' The Ontario Crown Attorneys' Association, in an open letter released Tuesday , primarily targets recent remarks by Conservative politicians who criticized prosecutors for pursuing what they characterized as excessively harsh sentences in the 'Freedom Convoy' case, suggesting that violent offenders often face lighter consequences. 'Personal attacks on Crowns seeking a significant sentence are nothing less than attacks on prosecutorial independence. These attacks do not — nor will they ever — drive the decisions made by our prosecutors,' OCAA president Donna Kellway said in a statement posted on the Toronto-based organization's website. It did not name the case, referring to it only as 'a highly publicized prosecution.' Last week, a sentencing hearing was held in Ottawa for Tamara Lich and Chris Barber. They were both found guilty of mischief this spring for their roles in organizing the winter 2022 protest near Parliament Hill that was initially against COVID-19 restrictions and mandates. The prosecution is seeking a prison sentence of seven years for Lich and eight years for Barber, arguing that lengthy sentences are justified because of the harm caused to the broader community during the three-week trucker blockade. The maximum sentence for mischief is 10 years imprisonment. In 2023, the Ottawa People's Commission, which held public hearings, issued a scathing report that concluded the protest was a 'colossal' violation of residents' rights, with many people experiencing violence, harassment and assaults. Residents said they felt abandoned by police and government while big-rig trucks gridlocked the streets for weeks. Defence lawyers for Lich and Barber are seeking absolute discharges, leaving the pair with no criminal records. Lich has already spent 49 days in jail and has been under strict bail conditions for the last three-and-a-half years. Barber has also been on bail 'without incident,' his lawyer said. The judge is scheduled to impose sentence on Oct. 7. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who is looking to win a seat in Parliament in next month's Alberta byelection, questioned the prosecution's position on sentence, in a post on X : 'Let's get his straight: while rampant violent offenders are released hours after their most recent charges & antisemitic rioters vandalize businesses, terrorize daycare centres & block traffic without consequences, the Crown wants 7 years prison time for charge of mischief for Lich & Barber. How is this justice?' Melissa Lantsman, a Tory MP representing Thornhill, suggested on X that the Crown was engaging in 'political vengeance not actual justice and it's why trust in our institutions is dwindling,' while Andrew Lawton, an MP from southwestern Ontario , called the prosecution 'excessive and vindictive.' On Tuesday, the OCAA's open letter explained that prosecutors are 'independent' and 'apolitical' — their responsibility is to act in the public interest and uphold the rule of law. The OCAA represents about 1,200 assistant Crown attorneys. It went on to describe that a prosecutor's job entails seeking 'a legally available sentence that responds to the objective seriousness of the offence and the moral blameworthiness of the offender.' Sentencing submissions are based on applicable legislation, relevant sentencing principles, the facts of a case and the Constitution. The number of people impacted by an offence is also a proper consideration. 'The Crown advances legal arguments to pursue just sanctions in order to protect society and to contribute to respect for the law.' Tuesday's OCAA letter also denounced an unnamed columnist for what it called the 'shaming of counsel based on their gender in the defence of individuals charged with certain offences.' After the Hockey Canada trial, Star columnist Heather Mallick questioned how female lawyers can represent men accused of sexual assault . The Criminal Lawyers Association, which represents 1,800 defence lawyers, also released a statement Tuesday condemning the Star column. With files from Canadian Press Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
