After a contentious Democratic primary where Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Neil failed to gain his own party’s endorsement, his fellow Democratic challenger Charmaine McGuffey now faces Bruce Hoffbauer to be the highest-ranking lawperson in the county.

Both candidates have emphasized their law enforcement experience and their desire to engage with the community, but questions about qualifications mar both campaigns.

McGuffey served in the sheriff's office for 33 years, rising to the rank of major and serving as the commander of Jail and Court Services for Hamilton County. She is the highest-ranking woman in the history of the office. She left the department in 2017.

"I can feel the momentum coming off of that 70 percent win in the primary," McGuffey said. "It really made a strong statement about my campaign, about what people want in their criminal justice professionals going into the general election, and I can literally feel the momentum pulling the campaign along."

The Department's First Openly Gay Candidate

She is also the first LGBT candidate for Hamilton County Sheriff, and has become one of the most notable LGBT figures in Cincinnati politics since the April primary.

"My role is to be an example of what you can accomplish as an LGBT person because there's a lot of discrimination out there," McGuffey said. "There were lots of times that I struggled to keep my sexual orientation to myself because I knew that if it got out it would hurt my career.

"It feels great to be an LGBTQ candidate, but I know it's a huge responsibility so I can prove to people that being LGBTQ shouldn't hold anyone back."

Hoffbauer's Family Ties

Hoffbauer has served in the Cincinnati Police Department for 34 years, and recently retired as a lieutenant and relief commander of District 3 in Western Hills. Working in the sheriff's office has been a dream of Hoffbauer's, as his father served as a deputy sheriff for 52 years.

"As time went on, I always had a feeling for the sheriff's office," Hoffbauer said. "Timing is almost everything, and as I found myself in the twilight of my career with Cincinnati (Police Department), I looked at the sheriff's office and thought, 'You know, that place educated me, put food in my stomach, clothing on my back, gave my dad a career for 52 years.' I felt like I wanted to go back there."

McGuffey has criticized Hoffbauer for his lack of experience in the sheriff's office, noting his outsider status and the problems that could cause moving into the role.

"He has really no experience in managing anything in the sheriff's office, nor any years of service," McGuffey said. "He touts this police agency experience he has as the end all, be all, but the sheriff's office has the Jail and Court Services which I have managed, and he has no experience managing budgets. He is a mid-level manager as a lieutenant and has no experience in the sectors that I have been in charge of."

Candidates' Controversial Pasts

Hoffbauer has been critical of several of McGuffey's incidents throughout her career in the sheriff's department, most notably her demotion in 2017. An internal investigation found that McGuffey had created a hostile work environment for her subordinates, and she was demoted to a civilian position. She left the sheriff's office after the demotion, claiming that officers complained of her leadership due to her gender and sexuality. She has filed a discrimination suit against the department in federal court. The case is still pending.

"McGuffey left on not too great circumstances, she was cited for 31 counts of creating a hostile work environment, all of which were sustained," Hoffbauer said. "Is that the kind of person you want to lead the department with that kind of past?"

Hoffbauer's career hasn't been free of controversy either, however. He was involved in the 1990 police shooting death of Walter Brown in Corryville. Then-Hamilton County Prosecutor Arthur Ney ruled that Hoffbauer and a fellow officer did not break the law, but City Manager Gerald Newfarmer stated that Hoffbauer did use excessive force. The incident has come into the spotlight again given the recent protests around the country against police brutality and racial injustice, including in Cincinnati.

On 'Defunding' The Police

Many of those protesters have called to "defund the police," or shift funds away from law enforcement and toward other community interests. Both McGuffey and Hoffbauer do not support the idea of defunding the police, but McGuffey believes that social workers should have a larger role in law enforcement, bringing specialized help to cases where there is no immediate threat to an officer's life and an armed officer may not be required.

"A majority of the runs we respond to are social ills - addiction, mental health crises, people struggling with day-to-day stuff," McGuffey said. "If we can direct people to the right place to get help rather than incarcerate them, that's what we want to do."

Hoffbauer disagrees, noting the necessity of armed officers during any interaction with the public.

"When you talk about social services ... I'm definitely behind that because we need that in the jail system," Hoffbauer said. "But when you take away armed officers in social worker situations, you create a recipe for disaster."

He proposes putting in place a similar system that works in the Cincinnati Police Department of sending out social workers alongside armed officers to deal with non-violent situations like mental health crises.

Similarly, McGuffey supports de-militarization of the sheriff's office to an extent, noting the unneeded military surplus vehicles and equipment where taxpayer dollars go to waste.

"I don't want to buy more tanks or more bullets. I want to invest in the human factor; that's how I count the strength of our department," McGuffey said.

Again, Hoffbauer disagrees, noting the necessity of military surplus equipment for certain high-risk situations.

"You need to have firepower that is equal to or greater than the firepower that you are facing," he said. "We cannot go in there looking like we're going into armed battle, but you have to have that equipment available for when something truly bad and horrible happens."

Charmaine McGuffey and Bruce Hoffbauer will face off in the Nov. 3 general election. Eligible Ohio voters can register to vote by Oct. 5 for the Nov. 3 general election. Voters can also request an absentee ballot from the Hamilton County Board of Elections website.

Mail-in or absentee voting has in the past only accounted for a small percentage of all votes cast nationwide. But as a global pandemic stops normal life for most Americans, an unprecedented number of states are encouraging voting by mail, including Ohio and Kentucky.

This has brought with it a number of concerns about election security and widespread voter fraud from a number of politicians, principally President Donald Trump. These claims are dubious at best.

Mail-in votes are just as safe and secure as voting at your local polling place on Election Day, says Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Ohio's chief elections officer and, like Trump, a Republican.

"The President raises concerns that may be valid in other states, but not in Ohio," LaRose says. "The President is responsible for all 50 states and I'm just responsible for Ohio and the 8 million registered voters here need to know that vote by mail is secure, easy to use and your vote will be counted."

In reality, there is little evidence of widespread mail voter fraud anywhere in the U.S.

Hamilton County Board of Election Director Sherry Poland explained to WVXU how mail-in voting really works, step-by-step, and all the security measures that ensure your ballot is counted correctly.

Requesting A Ballot

It starts with registration, which you can complete right now online at VoteOhio.gov. Then you can request a mail-in ballot by filling out a form from your county’s Board of Elections. Here’s Hamilton County’s form for the November election.

LaRose, too, intends to mail an absentee voter application to all of Ohio's nearly 8 million voters sometime shortly after Labor Day.

When your application is received, all the identifying information on the application - like your name, date of birth, signature, Ohio driver's license number or social security number - are electronically and manually cross-referenced with information from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and from your original voter registration form. This ensures that the person applying for a ballot is really who they claim to be.

Then, a bipartisan team from the Board of Elections creates a ballot packet, which includes a voter's personalized ballot from their district held inside an identification envelope which contains another form with identifying information. That envelope is inside a second return envelope alongside instructions to ensure the ballot is filled out correctly.

After a voter receives their ballot and fills it out, they seal their ballot inside the identification envelope, and seal the identification envelope inside the return envelope. This creates two layers of protection for the ballot from anyone trying to get in and tamper with it.

Ballots can be either mailed to the voter's county Board of Elections using the Postal Service or dropped off by hand at the Board of Elections office. There is a touchless drop box for absentee ballots outside the Hamilton County board offices on Smith Road in Norwood.

Voters mailing their ballots must have them postmarked one day before the election – in this case, Nov. 2 for the general election. If you drop off your ballot by hand, you have until 7:30 p.m. on Election Day to return your ballot.

The Verification Process

Once a ballot reaches the Board of Elections - whether it be on Election Day, days later or weeks before - every ballot goes through the same verification process. Just like with the mail-in application, information on the identification envelopes is verified by a bipartisan team electronically and manually. Still sealed, the ballots are stored in a room with two locks so that one Republican and one Democratic Board of Elections employee are needed to access the room.

Mail-in ballots are then removed from their envelopes and inspected to ensure they don’t have coffee stains or tears, which would make them unable to be read by machines. Damaged ballots are still counted, just by hand instead. After being flattened to remove creases, ballots are fed through a machine that captures the voting record but does not create a count of how many votes a candidate has received. That ensures employees of the Board of Elections don't have any information about the results of an election - they find out the results at the same time the public does.

On Election Day

Once Election Day arrives, the data from the vote capturing machines is manually moved to a tabulation machine that generates the election results. That data is then moved by hand again to a computer that sends it to the Ohio Secretary of State's office and the public. No machines in the vote count process are connected to the internet, and the manual moving of data is what causes the hours delay between polls closing and unofficial results being released later that night.

This counting process continues for another week as ballots continue to arrive in the mail, and an official count is released seven days after Election Day.

Additional Measures

From voter registration to mail-in application to a final count, there are layers upon layers of security protection to ensure that mail-in voting is just as safe as voting in person. There are even additional layers of security at the state level. LaRose identified key safeguards that his office maintains to ensure complete election security.

The Secretary of State's office constantly adds and removes people from Ohio's voter rolls, using data from the national moving database, the Bureau of Motor vehicles, and death records. This ensures that only currently eligible voters can get ballots.

Additionally, ballot harvesting is prohibited in Ohio. This is when political operatives would collect ballots from both parties and throw out ballots they didn't want to be counted.

"That's what happened in North Carolina," LaRose says. "A Republican operative was convicted of election fraud for that very thing, throwing out Democratic ballots. In Ohio we don't permit that." Only the voter or their immediate family can submit ballots in Ohio.

When An Anomaly Occurs

After all this however, there still are some anomalies every election. According to Poland, this is usually voters who vote by mail and submit provisional ballots in-person. Every case is investigated individually. It usually results in a voter who mailed in their ballot near the deadline and then also voted in person to ensure that their vote counted; or an elderly who forgot they mailed in a ballot already. In all of these cases, only one ballot is counted and no charges are filed.

In Hamilton County’s history though, there have been some cases of voter fraud.

There have been three cases of voter fraud in the last decade, two where a family member submitted a ballot for a recently deceased relative, and one where a poll worker attempted to have multiple votes cast and counted. All three cases resulted in indictments. One resulted in a prison sentence.

Despite this, voter fraud isn't a concern in Hamilton County.

"Voter fraud is extremely rare, and I can name those three cases off the top of my head because it's so rare in Hamilton County," Poland said. "It's important for people to know that we look at all that, on top of all the security measures we have in place."

Despite being secure and still easy to vote by mail, the process isn't perfect. Due to delays by the Postal Service in Butler County in the 2020 Ohio Primary, some valid votes weren't counted. Diane Noonan is the director of the Butler County Board of Elections.

"We called USPS on the last day and they said they gave us all the ballots, but Tuesday morning they showed up with 317 ballots," Noonan said. "It was the Post Office's fault for not sending us the ballots by the time they had to be here - May 8, according to state legislation. We tried to go to the Secretary of State to try and still use those ballots but we were not permitted."

"It's just sad, there's nothing that we could do," Noonan said.

To avoid a similar fate for your ballot, Noonan recommends submitting your ballot in the mail at least one week before Election Day, or by dropping off your ballot by hand at your county's Board of Elections office.

Eligible Ohio voters can request mail-in ballots right now until Oct. 31 at your local Board of Elections office. You can register to vote, check your voter registration status, change your voting address or register to work as a poll worker on election day at the Secretary of State's website VoteOhio.gov.

For residents in St. Bernard and Mt. Healthy, there will be a special election on Aug. 4. Two levy measures are on the ballot, one in each community. St. Bernard and Mt. Healthy are two of the 11 Ohio communities holding special elections Aug. 4.

Clermont, Butler and Warren counties in Southwest Ohio have no issues on the ballot.

Eligible voters can request an absentee ballot from the Hamilton County Board of Elections by Aug. 1. Polls are open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Election Day. Here’s what’s on the ballot:

City Of Mt. Healthy

A new tax levy of 12.9 mills ($1.29 per $100 property tax value) in order to fund fire and EMS services in the city. The levy would be in place indefinitely.

Village Of St. Bernard

Renewal of a tax levy of seven mils ($0.70 per $100 property tax value) to fund current expenses for the village. The extension would last five years. Taxes would not be raised.

You can find your local polling place at the Hamilton County Board of Elections' website here.

After a strong showing in the Kentucky Democratic primary, defeating Shanon Fabert by nearly 12,000 votes, Dr. Alexandra Owensby will now face incumbent Rep. Thomas Massie, who won handily over challenger Todd McMurtry, in the Nov. 3 general election.

Owensby carried every county in Kentucky's 4th District, and is hoping to turn that momentum into a campaign to unseat Northern Kentucky's four-term representative.

Owensby, a registered nurse from Ft. Thomas, pitches herself as the moderate alternative to Massie, who she calls an "extremist."

"The big difference is that he's an extremist and I'm not," she says. "He votes against any government oversight when the reality is that most people don't share those extremist views. Kentuckians are tired of somebody not standing up for the people of the district and the businesses in the district."

Owensby was registered as politically independent until filing for candidacy to represent the Democratic Party on the ballot. She is hoping that her moderate views can court Republican voters displeased with Massie's tenure as representative.

"The thing about Kentucky and the 4th District is that even the Democrats tend to be more moderate," she says. "As a representative, your job is not to be a voice for whatever particular whim you are feeling that day, your job is to be a voice for everybody in that area."

As a medical professional, Owensby has criticized the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and noted that expanding mail-in ballots for the November election is critical to keeping the state safe. Gov. Andy Beshear ordered that mail-in ballot eligibility be expanded to all voters in the primary election due to the threat of spreading COVID-19 at polling places, which caused delays in returning results.

With her campaign’s focus shifting from the primary to the general election, Owensby said the learning process of her first primary has affected how she campaigns.

"We turned from a candidate into a representative," she said. "Somebody has to be a voice for communities and speak out, but Massie isn't speaking out for them."

According to Owensby, the key difference between her and Massie is how they connect to voters.

"(Massie) doesn't do town halls, he doesn't show up anywhere in person to campaign," she says. "He has very limited contact with the voters of the 4th District because he doesn't care what they have to say."

Following a week of waiting after polls closed on June 23, Amy McGrath has won the Kentucky Democratic Senate primary and will face Repulican Sen. Mitch McConnell in November. What was once seen as a forgone conclusion months ago turned into one of the country’s closest primaries.

State Rep. Charles Booker was almost able to overcome McGrath's massive fundraising pool, but narrowly fell short. McGrath won the state-wide primary with 45.1% of the vote and a margin of victory of only 2.1%.

Booker far surpassed expectations for his campaign, nearly defeating McGrath who had the support of the party and establishment Democrats like Chuck Schumer. However, in the last two weeks of the campaign, Booker gained endorsements from key progressive figures like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as the state’s largest newspaper, the Louisville Courier-Journal.

It all culminated in a nail-biting electoral process that resulted in a week of waiting because many counties – including the state's two largest, Jefferson and Fayette – only had one polling location, causing delays in tallies.

The 2020 primary was the first election where Kentucky allowed all voters to submit mail-in ballots, after orders from Gov. Andy Beshear to expand the mail-in process due to concerns over COVID-19. It resulted in a massive increase in voter turnout in the state. Over 525,000 Kentuckians voted in the Democratic primary this year, an increase of over 75,000 votes compared to the 2016 primary.

McGrath has leaned on moderate Democrats in the state, taking moderate stances on issues like Medicare for All, but has still pushed for reforms in immigration, student debt and firearm safety, among other issues. Booker often called McGrath a "Trump-supporting Democrat," marking the difference between her and his progressive campaign platform.

Despite her overall victory, McGrath lost handedly in Kentucky's urban centers. In Jefferson County, home to Booker's hometown of Louisville, McGrath grabbed only 35% of the vote. Even in Fayette County, where she narrowly lost the 2018 election for Kentucky's 6th Congressional District, McGrath still could not gain a plurality of votes. Booker won Jefferson and Fayette counties by a combined 36,000 votes, more than the total number of voters in any other individual county.

Northern Kentucky counties sided with McGrath, with her margin of victory in Kenton and Campbell counties at 20% and 18.2%, respectively. In Boone County, however, her margin of victory was only 3%.

McGrath will now face Senate Majority Leader McConnell on Nov. 3. McConnell, who has served as a Kentucky Senator since 1985, has already spent millions in negative campaign ads against McGrath. As the race ramps up over the remainder of the summer it is expected that this spending will only increase from both sides as an already unpopular McConnell fights to keep his seat.

With most of the state's polling places reporting, there will likely be no upsets in Kentucky's primary. However, this comes without results from the commonwealth's two largest counties — Jefferson and Fayette — home to Louisville and Lexington. The two counties announced Tuesday that no unofficial results will be released until June 30.

In the Senate race, incumbent Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won his eight-way primary with little resistance, but the democratic primary is still contested.

With 54% of polls reporting, Amy McGrath leads Charles Booker by just over 8%. This looks promising for McGrath, but Booker — a progressive — expects his strongest support from his hometown Louisville. McGrath spent little effort on the primary race, but Booker gained momentum in the final two weeks of the campaign, leading to a closer contest than originally expected.

For the Northern Kentucky House race, District 4, incumbent Thomas Massie defeated Covington lawyer Todd McMurtry with a significant margin of victory — over 88% of voters sided with Massie with 85% of precincts reporting. Massie and McMurtry traded accusations of racism and questioned each other's loyalties to President Donald Trump, but not even Trump's own attacks against Massie could topple him in this primary.

On the Democratic side, Dr. Alexandra Owensby is gathering a lead over Shanon Fabert in District 4. Owensby sells herself a pure moderate, only recently siding with the Democratic Party. Fabert, however, takes a more progressive angle. Owensby holds a 19% lead over Fabert with 85% of precincts reporting.

This uncertainty is partially due to Kentucky opening up mail-in voting to all eligible voters for the first time in its history. Gov. Andy Beshear encouraged voters to mail-in their ballots in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the commonwealth.

While many local races have been called already, it looks unlikely that the winner of the democratic Senate primary will be known until June 30, when Jefferson and Fayette counties release their poll results.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear expanded the state's limited mail-in voting due to COVID-19 for its primary election on June 23. The change is temporary, applying only to the primary election, but activists want to make the change permanent.

"If you actually think about the effort it takes to vote absentee versus on voting day, this makes it so much easier for people to vote, and if the intention is to get more people to vote and be active in the political process, this just removes a big hurdle that keeps people from voting," said Paul Schwartz, a member of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, an activist organization that advocated for expanded voting rights.

Kentucky holds closed primaries, meaning only voters registered as either a Democrat or a Republican can vote in its party's primary.

Initially, only voters with specific exceptions could request absentee ballots. This included the elderly, active military, and people temporarily residing outside of the state, like college students. Those requirements were waived for the primary election.

Expanding mail-in voting has come with some concerns about election security.

"I know there's a lot of security issues, but after going through it, the security of the absentee ballot is probably no worse or better than what you do at the polling place," Schwartz said.

After coming under fire from President Donald Trump on Twitter, some have been quick to criticize the security of mail-in ballots. However, cases of voter fraud are rare, as it is very difficult to get past the multiple layers of security built into each ballot and the counting process. There were no cases of voter fraud in the 2018 elections in Kentucky, according to The Heritage Foundation.

"As we’ve made it easy to vote in this election, we’ve also made it hard to cheat, with identity verification necessary to obtain an absentee ballot, monitoring of addresses requesting multiple absentee ballots, tracking of absentee ballots received and sent, and required matching of voter signatures before an absentee ballot is accepted," Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams said in a press release.

Ballots are sealed in two layers of envelopes signed by the voter, ensuring that the ballot itself is only opened by election officials. Ballots that appear to be tampered with are not counted. Additionally, when counting votes, at least one witness from each political party is present to ensure a non-partisan tally.

"If the goal is to get more people voting and involved in the political process, unless you show me a downside, this is something that we can do to hopefully get more people to vote," Schwartz said. "I've worked the primaries before and it's a ghost town, so I'm hoping for an increase in turnout this year."

In-person voting for the Kentucky primaries will occur on June 23. Hours vary depending on local polling places, and you can find your polling place at GoVoteKY.com. Voters who would have qualified for mail-in ballots before the expansion can also vote early in-person at their county’s Board of Elections or County Clerk Office.

Louisville native and Kentucky State Representative Charles Booker likes his chances at upsetting Amy McGrath in the Kentucky Senate Democratic primary. Booker is coming off multiple major endorsements from the likes of former presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the largest newspaper in Kentucky, the Louisville Courier-Journal. He’s repeatedly attacked McGrath as a "Trump-supporting Democrat," and is confident of his chances come June 23.

"While my opponents fight amongst themselves, we're building a coalition from Appalachia to the four rivers that are fired up because now they know that they have a candidate that will fight on the front lines for them, and beat Mitch McConnell in the process of doing it," Booker said.

However, Booker says that voting McConnell out of office isn't enough.

"This really isn't about him," Booker said. "We need to get rid of him so we can get onto the work of transforming our future."

Booker is a progressive Democrat, and has centered his campaign around fighting poverty. His policy platform supports Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, Universal Basic Income and expanding voting accessibility. Despite running in a red state as a progressive, Booker has seen lots of bipartisan support for his campaign, pitching himself as the anti-establishment candidate.

"I'm building a coalition ... Mitch McConnel wants to believe we're divided and to stoke that division and the Democratic establishment sees that narrative and assumes we can never stand together," Booker said. "I'm going to prove that folks that voted for Donald Trump, that voted for Bernie Sanders, that have never voted before, are going to lock arms to finally get Mitch McConnell out of there and then elect someone that is committed to ending poverty in Kentucky."

Mitch McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and has been re-elected five times.

Credit J. Scott Applewhite / AP

He takes from his own experiences with poverty and discrimination in fighting for change in Kentucky.

"So many of us across Kentucky know what poverty is about ... I tell them my own story of rationing insulin; my own story of being homeless; my own story of my mom going without eating so I could eat. People understand that even if we don't agree with every policy point, that they know I'm fighting for them," Booker said.

He also emphasized getting big money out of politics. His own campaign focuses on connecting to voters individually across the state instead of garnering support from wealthy donors.

"When you come from where I come from, and you're broke, nobody listens to you," he said."We're going to beat the big money model because we know what matters most."

As one of the most notable black politicians in the state, Booker has also taken a strong stance in supporting the protests in Louisville against police brutality following the death of Breonna Taylor in the city.

"The role of political leaders is to be on the front lines ... When people are crying out for justice and accountability, our leaders need to be there. This is not something I do out of political expediency, it's something I do for survival," Booker said. "I've marched in the streets a lot of times ... I've been in the streets since the protests began and I've been getting hit with tear gas myself because I know how important this moment is for us to show that we can stand together and transform our Commonwealth together."

He's also embracing his role as an underdog. While he trails behind in the fundraising race, raising fifty times less money than Amy McGrath has, Booker believes that his grassroots effort can drive voters to the ballot box.

"When you're a young black man in Kentucky, you're always seen as an underdog," Booker said. "We're ready to prove the establishment wrong, the status quo wrong, and all the national outsiders that thought that Kentucky wanted a pro-Trump Democrat. That's what we do, and we will win this primary."

Booker will face McGrath and eight other democratic opponents at the ballot box on June 23.

Kentucky's primary elections are coming up on June 23, but if you’ve seen television ads from Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell or his potential Democratic opponent Amy McGrath, you may not know it. Both candidates have spent almost all of their time — and almost all of their money — attacking each other instead of their primary opponents.

The senate race has garnered a national spotlight as McGrath is viewed as one of McConnell’s strongest challengers ever for the seat he has held since 1985. Nearly half of Americans view the Senate Majority Leader unfavorably, and McGrath is building off of momentum from her slim loss to Lexington Congressman Andy Barr in 2018.

"This is about Kentucky. I don't care that there's a national spotlight because we need new leaders," McGrath said. "We need a senator who will finally put the people of Kentucky first and I believe that Mitch McConnell has failed for 35 years to represent Kentucky. Right now he is a creature of Washington (D.C.). He represents special interests way more than the everyday person in Kentucky."

Both McGrath and McConnell so far have run extensive negative ad campaigns against each other, even though they aren't even directly running against each other. However, their Nov. 3 general election matchup seems inevitable. McConnell has no substantial opposition in his primary, despite facing seven other candidates, and McGrath has similarly dominated the Democratic primary, raising nearly $30 million according to FEC filings, over 50 times more than all eight of her primary opponents combined, and even more than McConnell's $25 million. She also won the backing of her party.

McGrath is facing notable opponents Charles Booker and Mike Broihier, both of whom she debated on June 1, as well as seven other candidates. Booker and Broihier have raised just over $300,000 and $200,000 respectively. None of McConnell’s seven opponents have raised over $50,000.

The stark difference in fundraising between McGrath and McConnell's campaigns, however, is where that money is coming from. Over two thirds of McGrath's campaign funds have come from donations of under $200, with an average donation of about $35, according to the McGrath campaign. By comparison, nearly half of McConnell's funding has come from donations of $2,000 or more.

"It's awesome that people are powering my campaign, not special interests or a group that Mitch McConnell works for, none of that. I'm really proud of that," McGrath said.

WVXU reached out to McConnell, but his campaign declined to comment. All three Democrats - McGrath, Broihier and Booker - can be heard on Wednesday's Cincinnati Edition.

Both McGrath and McConnell have emphasized the response to COVID-19 as a key issue in this election, though McGrath has critiqued the McConnell-led federal response.

"There was quite a bit of delay at the federal level in reacting to this pandemic, both from the (presidential) administration and from Sen. McConnell," she said. "The first time (McConnell) even talked about coronavirus as a concern ... was when the stock market tanked. That shows you clearly his priorities."

McConnell, however, points to his concerns over the national debt as leading his reaction to COVID-19 and as his reasoning for delaying future federal stimulus. McConnell spoke with WVXU’s Michael Monks on Cincinnati Edition May 29.

"We're at a low point now, but we've added $3 trillion to the national debt," he said. "We may well do more, but one of the things we have to weigh here is how much debt can we add without threatening the future of the country."

One place where the two candidates do seem to agree is the response to widespread protests in Louisville and around the country sparked by the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis. Protests began in Louisville over Floyd’s death and the death of paramedic Breonna Taylor, who was killed by Louisville Metro Police in her home. Black restaurant owner David McAtee was also killed by Louisville police during the protests on May 1.

"These protesters in Louisville and around the country are people whose voices are demanding to be heard," McGrath said. "We have real racial injustice in this country and communities are hurting. What Breonna Taylor's mother Tamika Taylor said really resonated with me: 'We all should demand justice for Breonna and a transparent investigation, but no more violence right now.' That's what leaders need to be echoing."

McConnell made a similar statement, calling for an end to violence in Louisville while supporting the right to protest peacefully in the city.

"We've seen incidents like these throughout our history, but it seems like fortunately, cooler heads always prevail," he said. "It's important to remember that peaceful protests are fine but violent reactions to things that we observe that are horrendous are not helpful."

As Kentuckians go to the ballot box on June 23 for the state's primary elections, both McConnel and McGrath are expected to win and advance to the Nov. 3 general election. Eligible voters can request mail-in ballots at GoVoteKY.com by June 15.

Todd McMurtry, the Northern Kentucky lawyer famous for being part of the legal team representing a Covington Catholic High School student in suits against CNN and The Washington Post, hopes to unseat Rep. Thomas Massie in the state's June 23 Republican primary. McMurtry has attacked Massie over his apparent lack of loyalty to the president and the Republican Party.

This comes after President Trump publicly attacked Massie on Twitter, saying "...WIN BACK HOUSE, but throw Massie out of Republican Party!"

Massie voted to force a recorded vote on the CARES Act, the federal stimulus bill which was passed in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. Massie's vote would have made Congress return to Washington D.C. amidst the pandemic to vote in-person, but his motion failed.

WVXU reached out to Massie multiple times via phone and email for comment for this story but did not receive a response. Massie will, however, appear on Tuesday's Cincinnati Edition in a pre-recorded conversation with host Michael Monks.

McMurtry has focused on Massie's record of voting against key bills that would repeal the Affordable Care Act, defund Planned Parenthood, provide funding for a border wall, and to support U.S. interests in Israel.

"There's a lot of support in the district for foreign policy interests in Israel and Congressman Massie is the most anti-Israel Republican in Washington. He is right up there with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and 'The Squad,' " McMurtry said, referring to the nickname of a group of four Democratic women of color elected to the House in 2018.

Outside of his support for the president, McMurtry's policy focus is on infrastructure and transportation in Northern Kentucky. Massie currently serves on the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure.

"When (Massie) ran he said, 'You need to put an engineer in Congress to get the Brent Spence Bridge done.' He's on the infrastructure committee but he has never gotten a piece of legislation passed; he's never even gotten a piece of legislation out of the committee. He has proven to be completely ineffective on transportation and infrastructure issues," McMurtry said.

McMurtry also decried Massie's tendency to vote 'no' on pieces of legislation. He votes 'no' so often that Politico dubbed him "Mr. No" in 2014.

"Simply voting 'no' on everything accomplishes nothing. We need a problem solver," McMurtry said.

He also points voters to his campaign's website listing Massie's actions in the eight years he's served in Congress, called MassieMistakes.com.

While McMurtry is putting up a tough rhetorical fight, Massie is clearly winning the fundraising race. According to FEC filings, Massie has raised over $800,000 compared to McMurtry's $185,000. McMurtry had some difficulty fundraising after a tweet he made in 2019 surfaced using "#racist." Numerous conservative donors, including the political committee associated with Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, requested refunds on their donations to his campaign.

"I am in Austin this weekend. Glad to be in this group. #redneck #racist #f---wit Just had the best BBQ of my life," McMurtry tweeted. It has since been deleted.

In response, McMurtry went on the offensive, claiming that the tweet was taken out of context and that Massie has racial bias problems of his own.

"Congressman Massie came to the defense of now-defeated Congressman Steve King who was widely criticized by his colleagues and stripped of his committee assignments because of his racist comments. Yet, his biggest supporter in Congress was Congressman Massie," McMurtry said. "I have personally seen photographs of Congressman Massie flying the Confederate flag over his Kentucky home, so him attacking me as a racist is pretty ironic."

Two images on Massie’s blog do indeed appear to show the flag on his home: one posted in July 2006 and the other in August 2006.

The blog documents Massie's experiences building his home. He also used the blog to endorse the presidential and senate campaigns of Ron and Rand Paul, before ending the blog when he began his congressional campaign in 2011.

WVXU again reached out to Massie to give him the opportunity to respond to these photos but as of Monday at 5 p.m. did not receive a response.

Massie and McMurtry will face each other at the ballot box on June 23. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has encouraged voters to vote using mail-in ballots, which can be requested at GoVoteKY.com by June 15.

As the Kentucky primary approaches on June 23, Democratic candidates for the 4th Congressional District, currently held by Republican Thomas Massie, are prepared for a close race.

Dr. Alexandra Owensby, a Ft. Thomas nurse practitioner, is facing off against Shannon Fabert, a business consultant from Hebron.

Owensby pitches herself as a moderate, while Fabert hopes to be a part of the "unbridled blue wave," according to her website. Each candidate refused to attack the other, instead focusing their words on Massie and making their cases for why they should represent Kentucky in Washington, D.C.

"What I'm passionate about is change and change management," Fabert said. "I know how to do that and I believe the 4th is ready for change and wants somebody that will do more than (Massie) has."

Fabert noted that the 4th is a very large district — spanning from the suburbs of Louisville in the west to Ashland in the east — but that there are common problems that tie the region together.

"I'm hearing from the people of the 4th, 'We're tired of feeling left out,' and 'We're tired of being left behind,' " she said. "We have much more common ground, regardless of our geography, than we know."

Owensby shared a similar notion of creating unity, not only throughout the geographic diversity of the district, but between party lines as well.

"Our current representative is an extremist," she said. "We are a country that has so many polarizing figures at its helm, and that's dividing us because we're focusing on where we are different from each other instead of the 90% of the places where we are the same. More than anything, we need a moderate, center-of-the-road voice that can bring hope and unity to our district."

Both candidates emphasized health care as their most important issue. Fabert stated her support for a "Medicare for all that want it" plan, similar to what former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg proposed. The response to COVID-19 is also on the front of both candidates' minds.

"We desperately need health care providers at the forefront of managing this response and making sure that we come up with clear evidence-based solutions so we don't end up in the same situation where we are right now, where the economy is tanking and we don't have clear direction on what to do from our government," Owensby said.

No matter the outcome of the primary election, the prevailing Democrat will have a tough challenge facing off against either Massie or his primary challenger Todd McMurtry in the general election. Combined, the two Democrats have raised about $80,000 according to FEC filings, while Massie alone has raised over $800,000.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has encouraged all voters to vote by mail instead of in person. Eligible voters can request mail-in ballots by June 15 from GoVoteKY.com.

Former Cincinnati council member and state representative Alicia Reece became the official Demcoratic candidate for the late Todd Portune's Hamilton County commission seat Thursday.

The board of elections voted Thursday morning to certify the final results of this year's extended primary election. It resulted in Reece nearly doubling her lead in the unofficial vote count in her contest with former state representative Connie Pillich of Montgomery.

Pillich would not concede the election when the unofficial vote count was done on April 28.

Reece ended up with 47% of the vote to 43% for Pillich. The rest - almost 10% - was taken by community activist Kellie Prather.

Reece, a local political veteran, will face newcomer Andy Black, who won the Republican primary unopposed.

Reece served on Cincinnati City Council as vice mayor from 2002 to 2007 and in the Ohio House of Representatives from 2010 to 2018, where she was the head of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus.

Black, who served on Mariemont village council and as its vice mayor in 2011 and 2012, is selling himself as a businessman first and someone who can provide an outsider's perspective at the county level.

"I'm not coming in presenting myself as a conventional politician. While I do know how government operates, and how villages like Mariemont operate, coming with a background outside of politics in itself can bring a different perspective," Black told WVXU. "My plan is to take the 'all hands on deck' approach that a business would take to help the situation the county is in."

Reece, however, relies on her experience in both local and state government to help bring funding to the county. Hamilton County faces a projected $40 to $60 million deficit this year.

"Now more than ever, you need someone that knows how the state budget works," Reece told WVXU before the final vote count. "Someone that has relationships at the state and local levels. Who understands how to ask for the right things, and ask for it in the right way. People want experience because now we've got an issue here where the decisions we make affect people's lives."

Both Black and Reece emphasized the need for the county to work with all 48 municipalities in the county outside of Cincinnati, especially as the region struggles economically due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We can't move forward unless we’re one Hamilton County with all 49 municipalities, that's what makes us strong," Reece said. "Coming to the table as one Hamilton County can maximize the federal resources, the state resources that we can get. We're a lot stronger when we come united."

To help resolve the county's budget woes, Black recommends selling assets and holding back on building projects.

"We have a lot of assets that we own right now that, on our path, with our staffing, we don't necessarily need," he said. "Some buildings Downtown; investments we’ve made in projects that we may not be able to use given the way that they are forecasting the operating costs of the county going forward. If there are some assets we can shed to bring down our operating expenses, our maintenance expenses ... that's the No. 1 priority," he said.

Both Reece and Black pointed out the Paul Brown Stadium deal as a possible place to help the budget through renegotiation between the county and the Cincinnati Bengals. The county will owe the Bengals at least $5 million per year until 2024 under the current deal.

Reece and Black also commended the county's efforts in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Reece has advocated for expanding assistance to residents of the county as part of her budget plans.

"Any investment that we make should be helping people put the pieces back together. Helping small businesses not only reopen but also be able to thrive and hire people," Reece said. "Helping people be employed, especially those that were furloughed that now can’t go back to work. ... Our focus has to be on both the health safety and the economic safety of the county."

The final chapter of the county commissioner race will be at the ballot box on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3.

Even though Ohio’s primary ended April 28, the election isn’t over just yet. Results aren’t official until they are certified by the Hamilton County Board of Elections, and for them the process is just getting started.

On election night, the Board of Elections conducted an unofficial ballot count of all ballots received by mail and in-person, but many ballots were still on the way. They are now still accepting ballots until May 5, as long as they were postmarked before election day. Ballots from overseas and military voters will be accepted until May 8. Additionally, voters who did not present valid IDs when voting and submitted provisional ballots or had mislabeled absentee ballots have until May 5 to “cure” their ballots and ensure that they are counted.

Provisional ballots are ballots submitted by voters which had errors or could not be verified. According to Hamilton County Board of Election Deputy Director Sally Krisel, common reasons for submitting provisional ballots are name changes, address changes, lack of valid ID or requesting an absentee ballot and not receiving it in time.

“I think there are some people worried about casting provisional ballots... we go through all of that documentation to make sure that we are getting every single vote that we can counted, which is why the official [count] comes a couple days later,” Krisel said.

The final vote count begins on May 9, once all ballots are submitted. On May 12, the Board of Elections reviews provisional ballots and decides which should be counted. Then, the election is certified and results are made final on May 14. This is when results will be released to the public.

If any race is within a 0.5% margin, an automatic recount is triggered according to Ohio law. In that case, the Board of Elections would randomly draw precincts to count ballots by hand. Results would be counted and released on May 20 for those races.

“We always plan for [recounts] because you never know what the remainder of ballots will add to the overall. We don’t know what will change, sometimes [margins] get closer, sometimes they get larger,” Krisel said.

According to unofficial results, two races are still close — Issue 7 and the Hamilton County Commissioner Democratic primary. According to the unofficial count, Yes on Issue 7 leads by only 0.48%, and Alicia Reece leads Connie Pillich by 2.63%. WVXU has declared Reece the victor of the Commissioner primary, but Pillich has not conceded the race and is awaiting final results.

Krisel emphasized the importance of the final vote count, and urged any voters with questions to reach out to the Board of Elections on their website or by phone.

“The unofficial count, while most times doesn’t change the end result, it can. Most people think that’s the official thing and it’s over with, it isn’t. There’s a lot of other things we have to consider to make sure that every single person’s ballot gets counted,” she said.

Krisel expects final vote counts to be released on May 14 for all races, barring recounts.