As part of our public affairs service to the people of Kentucky, we regularly hold candidate discussions on Kentucky Tonight for select races. For the 2026 election, these include the US Senate and US House races.

Criteria for candidates to qualify to be invited were published to KET’s website on December 1, 2025. Following the January 2026 filing deadline, KET then reached out directly to campaigns – via certified mail as well as e-mail if available – to provide the criteria. To be clear, these criteria were pre-established, fairly applied to every candidate, and have not changed since they were posted last year.

Specific to the Senate races and based on the criteria, there were three Democratic and three Republican candidates for Senate who met the criteria and were therefore invited to participate. As stated in the criteria, a candidate’s principal campaign committee must have reported net contributions, not including in-kind contributions, of at least $100,000, or reported net expenditures, not including in-kind expenditures, of at least $100,000, on either January 31, 2026 Year End Report or the April 15, 2026 Quarterly Report it is required to file with the Federal Election Commission, and which are publicly available. And also as indicated in the criteria, KET will not consider any FEC Form 3 filed or amended after April 15, 2026.

These candidates listed on the ballot did not receive invitations due to not meeting the criteria:

Anissa Catlett – No Year End or April reports filed
James Duncan – No Year End or April reports filed
Michael Faris – Did not meet financial threshold in April filings
Logan Forsythe – Did not meet financial threshold in Year End Report; no April report filed
Val Fredrick – No Year End or April reports filed
Jonathan Holliday  – No Year End or April reports filed
Jimmy Leon – No Year End or April reports filed
Andrew Shelley – No Year End or April reports filed
Pamela Stevenson – No Year End or April reports filed
George Washington – No Year End or April reports filed
Donald Wenzel – Did not meet financial threshold in Year End Report; no April report filed

KET is Kentucky’s largest classroom, providing trusted programming, lifelong learning opportunities and essential services to more than two million people each week. Learn more about Kentucky’s preeminent public media organization at KET.org, on X @KET and at facebook.com/KET.