Kentucky’s candidates for governor are in the home stretch of their campaigns ahead of Tuesday’s primary election. Democrat Rocky Adkins was pressing the flesh on Friday in Bowling Green.
The former basketball standout at Morehead State University worked the tables at Teresa’s Restaurant telling the breakfast crowd it’s the last three minutes of the game and his team has momentum.
Adkins has spent more than three decades in the Kentucky House, 13 as majority leader and the past three years as minority leader.
The state representative from Sandy Hook said he’s the only Democrat in the race who can beat Republican Governor Matt Bevin in November.
“I have the relationships and friendships both in the House and Senate," he told WKU Public Radio. "I have the institutional knowledge to know how the General Assembly works and who to work with within that General Assembly on both sides of the aisle.”
During the Bowling Green stop, Adkins downplayed the need for major pension reform in a special session that Governor Bevin has said he will call before July 1. Regional universities, county health departments, rape crisis centers, and many other quasi-governmental agencies face ballooning pension costs on July 1 without legislative action. Adkins said he wants a freeze on pension contribution rates for those entities while lawmakers work on a pension proposal next year.
Adkins is in a four-way race for the Democratic nomination for governor. He’s up against Attorney General Andy Beshear, former State Auditor Adam Edelen, and perennial candidate Geoff Young.
