Mr. Cameron, a former aide to Mr. McConnell, was expected to cruise to the nomination given his ties to the powerful Senate minority leader and to Mr. Trump. But the race tightened after Ms. Craft, who is married to coal billionaire Joe Craft, began pouring millions of her own money into the race and flooding the airwaves with advertisements. Mr. Cameron did not have the resources to keep up.
The bruising primary raised concerns among some Kentucky Republicans about their prospects in the general election.
For almost two months, Ms. Craft the only major candidate with ads from her or her allies on TV. Together, she and her allies spent more than $7 million on advertising, compared to just $2.6 million by Mr. Cameron and his supporters, according to AdImpact, a company that tracks advertising.
Her campaign attacked Mr. Cameron for supporting the closing of a coal plant (the coal plant in question was in West Virginia) and chided him for not fighting the Justice Department’s investigation into the Louisville Police Department after police officers shot and killed Breonna Taylor during a botched raid at her apartment in 2020. She also sought to paint Mr. Cameron as a “supporter” of Mr. McConnell, a rare public dig at a man who has guided Kentucky politics for nearly 40 years.
Mr. Cameron got a late boost from an allied political action committee, Bluegrass Freedom Action, which received most of its funding from the Concord Fund, part of a network of influential conservative groups led by activist Leonard A. Leo. The group spent $2.1 million in the last six weeks of the primary to help Mr. Cameron and attack Ms. Craft.
Other choices
In Pennsylvania
In a special election for the state House on Tuesday, Republicans retained power in northern Pennsylvania’s 108th Legislative District as Michael Stender, a Republican school board member and firefighter, won in a three-candidate race, according to The AP
The safe GOP seat opened up this year when Lynda Schlegel Culver, the longtime incumbent, resigned after winning a vacant state Senate seat.
