State Sen. Robby Mills faces a late entrant in his pursuit for re-election to the District 4 state senator seat. His opponent, Jayna Russelburg, said a trip to the Fancy Farm political picnic in August was the tipping point for filing to run as a write-in against Mills.
She had been considering it for a long time, but what she described as “ugliness” at the annual event pushed her to throw her hat in.
Any write-in candidate faces an uphill battle, and that’s no different for Russelburg against Mills, who has only lost one individual election in his lifetime when he got beat by Henry Lackey for mayor of Henderson in 2002. (Mills also was running mate to Daniel Cameron in his loss to Andy Beshear in 2023.)
Mills said he’s been telling voters of the success that he has had in Frankfort, including influence that Henderson and northwest Kentucky have not had at the state capital since Bill Sullivan was a part of Senate majority leadership in the 1960s and 1970s.
“I’m just trying to remind people about the success we’ve had,” Mills said.
Mills said that he has been discussing local infrastructure development that has occurred locally. He said he was able to get funding in place for the state’s portion to pay for Section 2, the bridge, of the I-69 Ohio River Crossing project.
Mills has also spearheaded legislative efforts, along with state Rep. J.T. Payne and former state Rep. Jonathan Dixon, to fund the construction of a conference center at Audubon State Park.
Also a priority is funding for the Loop Road, which is planned to connect a proposed development behind Walmart to U.S. 60 at Wathen Lane in a looped fashion with much of the road tracing I-69. At the most recent General Assembly, $2 million was put in place to fund the study and design of the Loop Road.
Mills said that he will pursue funding for the road’s construction at the first chance, which could be at the General Assembly’s next budget session in 2028, or he said there could be earlier opportunities in the upcoming short session.
Despite her long odds, Russelburg told the Hendersonian she feels good about the race. Russelburg said she wants to pursue new revenue streams to fund different subsidies for individuals and businesses.
In this she included legalizing recreational cannabis and taxing it, and also expanded hemp production. She said the added revenue could help pay for infrastructure, health care, social infrastructure. She called her plans “thinking outside the box for the working class.”
Here are some of her talking points:
- She wants to fully fund Medicaid waivers, which is a big priority. Russelburg said the money was there to do that in the last budget session.
- Russelburg said she is motivated by caring for the “least of these.” “My running is a way to be able to effect some change that will help our marginalized groups,” she said.
- Russelburg also wants to be able to fund healthcare for regular folks. She’d like to one day see healthcare for all in America. But in the near future, she said a goal should be to get all children covered.
“Maybe we get all our kids taken care of first, and then we move on to adults,” she said.
Russelburg’s son has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and on her website, she said that has keenly affected how she views the world and the systems in place in the U.S. She said on her website that“government should make life easier for families, not create another obstacle course for them to navigate.”
Russelburg filed as a write-in on Aug. 18 and has made campaign stops in other communities of the 4th District. What she’s hearing, she said, is that constituents don’t feel seen or heard. Mills said one of the motivating factors for his running for a seat in the state legislature—first a state rep and then senate—was that he believed people in the state didn’t know where northwest Kentucky was. And now, he said they know where northwest Kentucky is.
