LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams won a second term Tuesday by besting former Democratic state lawmaker Buddy Wheatley.
Adams, the state’s chief elections officer, is known for championing bipartisan efforts to expand voting in Kentucky, reforms that have outlasted the COVID-19 pandemic.
"In just four years we have taken Kentucky from the bottom in election administration to the top," Adams said in his victory speech.
His victory speech hinted at ambitions for higher office.
"If we can boldly take Kentucky from the bottom to the top in election reform, why can't we do the same with education, with public safety, with quality of life, with social mobility?" Adams said. "The answer is, we absolutely can."
Adams is a lawyer from Paducah. He went to the University of Louisville before getting his law degree from Harvard University.
Charles “Buddy” Wheatley, an attorney and former chief of the Covington, Ky. fire district, served two terms in the Kentucky House of Representatives representing northern Kentucky before losing very narrowly to Republican Stephanie Dietz in 2022.
