The former legal counsel for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has clinched the Republican nomination for attorney general after a barb-fueled primary race.
Daniel Cameron has said he will fight for pro-life policies, combat the state’s opioid epidemic and end the partisan divide between the Democratic attorney general’s office and the Republican-led Legislature.
He will face former Attorney General Greg Stumbo, the Democratic candidate for the office who ran unopposed for the nomination.
Cameron won 55 percent of the Republican vote as of 9 p.m. Tuesday night, with 96 percent of precincts reporting. He defeated Republican State Senator Wil Schroder, who was first elected to the senate in 2014 and represents Campbell, Pendleton and Bracken Counties.
The two candidates held similar policy views, but traded jabs in campaign mailers and TV commercials. Cameron accused Schroder of being a “secret Democrat” while a Schroder ad depicted him shooting at a television set airing one of Cameron’s advertisements.
Cameron, 33, grew up in Hardin County and played football at the University of Louisville before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in political science and law.
From 2015 to 2017, Cameron worked as an attorney for McConnell, where he helped secure the nomination of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. He returned to private practice at Frost Brown Todd in Louisville in June 2017.
If Cameron wins the election in November, it would be a historic moment for Republicans who have not held the position since 1948.
Current Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear did not seek re-election and is now the Democratic candidate for governor.
