Democractic Sec. of State candidate Elaine Walker changes course, launches 'small-buy' for TV ads

Despite previously stating that she would focus on direct mail and robo-calls to get her message out before the May 17 primary, Democratic Secretary of State candidate Elaine Walker has made a small TV ad buy.

The TV ad is running in the Lexington and Louisville TV markets on broadcast, Jim McGovern, Walker’s campaign manager, told Pure Politics. It’s also running in other parts of the state, but McGovern declined to specifically say where else the ad is running. He added the caveat that the ad buy outside of Lexington and Louisville is small, but on a statewide scale.

McGovern said the buy was made out of personal funds Walker decided to loan herself for her campaign. He also said the Walker campaign did not purposely try to mislead by previously saying it would not be on radio or TV with advertisements.

Instead, McGovern said the campaign didn’t think it would have the resources to advertise on those media, but thanks to Walker’s personal loan, it had enough.

“We were just trying to get the resources to do it,” McGovern told Pure Politics.

He said the campaign reversed course on ads because it had a sense it could win the primary race against Lexington attorney Alison Lundergan Grimes, not because Grimes went up with TV ads over Derby weekend.

“This was largely based on gut instinct that we have a chance to win this race,” McGovern said.

He also said that the campaign is looking at including radio ads “late, maybe over the weekend.”

You can view the ad below:

-Reporting by Kenny Colston