The Kentuckian

2026 strategy and candidate teaser

by Anna Keller, editor

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The Kentucky Party is a vehicle to elected political power for organized Kentuckians who want public policy outside of what the Republican Party of Kentucky or the Kentucky Democratic Party can accept. Specifically, we're a party for anti-militarism and anti- corruption candidates with a positive vision for putting Kentucky first.

Electoral strategy

There are well-known pitfalls of outsider electoral campaigns:

These are the result of having a small or unprofessional organization, and of treating a single race as existential. The Kentucky Party ran one presidential candidate in 2024. While we worked hard, we had a realistic expectation of what we could achieve. We didn't burn anybody out. This was partly because of our history running candidates in Republican and Democrat primaries, and several general elections, winning once in a while.

In 2026 we will run candidates in three high-profile races (Lynch for US House KY-6, Ahmad for US House KY-4, Campbell for US Senate), one state race (Young for KY House 75th) and three local races (Settles for Lexington Fayette 1st District Magistrate, Settles for Lexington Fayette Soil and Water Conservation Board, Walker for Madison County 1st District Magistrate). We're courting potential Constable and Soil and Water Conservation Board candidates in west Kentucky.

All our candidates will appear on the November 2026 ballot. We've solved ballot access with our approach to being a third party. Parties in Kentucky are weak, campaigns are strong. The party's job is to recruit candidates and get them on the ballot, not daydream up an enormous wishlist of a platform, be a debating society, or otherwise count unhatched chickens.

Political power

To move from lobbying to legislating and executing policy, we need to win a lot of races. That means running a lot of candidates. It's not only the two parties and their donor networks, or the deep state, that undermine popular access to policy. It's also the narrow band of people prepared for office: members of large landholding families, graduates of particular programs at particular schools, and associates of particular firms.

Some of our candidates will get into office. Some will learn in the legislature how to evaluate policy, build a coalition, and bring money to our state. Some will learn in executive positions how to talk to lawyers and judges. All better learn how to fundraise and campaign. Those skills will be retained and shared, building the Kentucky Party's capability to gain political power for those outside the influential families, schools, and firms.

Candidates who don't get into office can still shape the race, educate the public, and influence the future policy of their opponent, especially when they aren't facing an incumbent. Races are opportunities to concentrate resoures and attention and use both almost without limit, certainly without the limits that muzzle nonprofits and academics. A candidate's first race for office is a gruelling, life-defining event in which many of that person's political convictions are shaped. Awareness of these facts make races themselves powerful political tools.

Populist strategy

Kentucky Party strategy comes from many sources. One is interracial, mixed-sex producerist populism in 1880s and 1890s Kentucky. Through labor unions, large-scale economic cooperatives, schools, and legislative power, our forebears fought Gilded-Age "parasites" and won durable victories.

Another source is Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau's theory, which informed Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, La France Insoumise in France, and maybe the Bundnis Sahra Wagenknecht in Germany. The Kentucky Party expands participatory democracy, and becomes a floating signifier for what the people want that current political elites will not allow.

When the Kentucky Party canvasses, we talk to more than 10,000 people. We know opposition to funding and arming Israel and Ukraine are popular. We know the rural people and veterans who care the most are most likely to be registered Republican or Independent. We know we can make militarism, specifically Israel, the issue on which big races for the US Senate and House hinge.

Similarly, our candidates can tell a story about immigration, price-gouging, and eviction that would be impossible for a Democrat or Republican to tell. They'll tell tens or hundreds of thousands of people, depending on how much money and in-kind support they raise. If they're strong enough candidates with strong enough campaigns, they'll win, but even if they aren't, their mailings and events will be a school and a means for members of already-organized groups of tenants, former prisoners, rank-and-file unions, and anti-imperialists to do more than lobby, and for previously isolated people to find each other and begin to act in concert. This is not a time for purely defensive structures.

How you can help

The Kentucky Party is still seeking candidates for 2026, particularly Constable candidates across the state who will be beholden to organizations representing tenants and formerly incarcerated people. We can use help canvassing to find candidates in counties with organizations who could hold them accountable. This is a statewide, Ashland to Paducah effort. We can also use help calling current Constables across the state to research how much they charge for their services, how they divide their time, and whether it's their primary job or a side-hustle for them.

Learn more about constables:

We are seeking legislative approval so people can register membership in the Kentucky Party online at the secretary of state website (they can currently only register with paper forms). To this end we can use help with a voter registration drive in trailer parks and other areas of low income and high density across the state.

Once candidates have declared and are prepared to receive money, we can use help with campaign websites, graphic design, and fundraising phonebanking. In early 2026, we can use help from canvassers to gather enough signatures to get ballot access for all our candidates.

All these roles, canvassing, cold-calling constables and donors, etc., are things you can do casually. You can make calls from wherever you are. You can crash with one of us and canvass for a day or a week.

We'll train anybody who wants to volunteer for any of these roles, so you can take them back to your millieu, and consider building a similar vehicle for gaining political power wherever you live.

Contact

This article, like all original content in The Kentuckian, is released into the public domain. The Kentuckian is an independent publication. It doesn't represent the opinion of the Kentucky Party or any of its committees.