Richie Kemp was an award-winning commonwealth’s attorney for Graves County.
His commitment to the role – which saw him prosecute felonies on behalf of the local government – helped to redefine how that office served the far western Kentucky community.
When Kemp took office in 2018 – after defeating his predecessor and former boss in the Democratic primary – Graves was one of just five counties in the state at the time that didn’t have a full-time commonwealth’s attorney. It also only employed two part-time prosecutors.
During his term, Kemp was able to secure the post’s transition to full-time, as well as the hiring of four full-time prosecutors, two full-time victim advocates to aid crime victims in circuit and district court, a pair of legal assistants and a detective to aid in investigations.
“The job itself is a challenging job,” Kemp said. “I mean, trying to convince 12 people of anything is not easy, and trying to convince them beyond a reasonable doubt that someone committed really bad crimes is challenging, but we had really, really good results that was recognized statewide.”
But his performance and the major changes he helped usher into the community’s legal system weren’t enough to get Kemp reelected for a second term in Graves County, which has become more and more Republican in recent elections – like many other western Kentucky locales.
Kemp lost to his Republican opponent – George Shannon Powers – by a little more than 900 votes, a gap that’s only slightly bigger than the GOP’s edge in voter registration in the county. But Kemp’s loss wasn’t that cut-and-dry.
The Democratic incumbent got 7,634 votes overall – with just 22% of his ballots coming from straight-ticket voters on the Democratic ticket. Powers’ victory was fueled by success with the straight party ballots from the other side of the aisle, with the Republican netting more than two-thirds of his 8,556 total votes that way.
If the election had been decided based solely on ballots cast for the candidates, Kemp would have beat Powers by more than 3,000 votes.
Asking the county’s voters not to vote straight-ticket was a part of Kemp’s campaign. He also sought endorsements from prominent Republicans, especially those in law enforcement.
“I was asked and … I felt that he was the best choice, that's the reason that I endorsed him,” said Graves County Sheriff Jon Hayden.
Hayden is a Republican, but said that political party should have nothing to do with how someone does this job or some other elected positions like his own.
Kemp feels the same way. He said, as a registered Democrat, he disagrees with both the Democrat and Republican parties on a number of things.
“Judges are non-partisan, and I firmly believe that prosecutors should be the same way,” Kemp said.
Judges, along with board of election and city council members are nonpartisan in Graves County. Circuit clerk and property value administrator are partisan down-ballot positions like Commonwealth’s Attorney.
Kentucky is one of six states that has straight ticket voting. The other states are Alabama, Michigan, Oklahoma, South Carolina and, in certain races, Indiana.
Megan Remmel is an associate professor of political science at Bradley University. She co-wrote a paper on the impacts of removing straight-ticket voting. Remmel said one of the positives of straight-ticket voting is participation in down-ballot races like local judges and school boards. The other side of that, she said, was that people might be voting in races they don’t know as much about.
“We can't always assume that partisanship lines up the same way nationally as it does at the state level – especially as it does at the local level – because you can get some weird bedfellows in terms of Democrats and Republicans and what they think on particularly local policy issues,” Remmel said.
Of course, the ideal way to participate in elections would be for voters to research each race and then decide to vote based on their research. But, Remmel admits even she doesn’t do that all of the time. Overall, straight-ticket voting can get people involved in more races, but people may be voting in races they don’t fully understand.
Remmel said voter habits have shifted in recent years. While more people used to cast votes for candidates in multiple parties, it’s become increasingly uncommon – even in states that don’t have straight-ticket voting.
“You are going to get potentially wins that look really lopsided, so you could have somebody who wins a majority of the vote, and they did so because they just got a bunch of votes off of straight-ticket voting,” Remmel said. “It wasn't necessarily because someone went and looked at that particular race and said, ‘I want this candidate.’ It's that that candidate happened to have the same party affiliation behind it.”
More people also tend to vote in presidential election years, like 2024. In 2018, the last time the Graves County Commonwealth’s Attorney position was up for election, it was a midterm election.
Kemp conceded the race to Powers in a Facebook post the evening of the general election – and in doing so acknowledged his team and their work as well as the current political atmosphere of Graves County.
“Our community is obviously deeply Republican. I acknowledge and respect your decision to elect a Commonwealth’s Attorney that aligns with our preferred political party,” Kemp wrote. “I remain dedicated to our county’s well-being and will continue to contribute in any way I can to make our justice system as strong, reasonable, and fair as possible.”
Comments on the post praised the work Kemp had done over the years and pointed to straight-ticket voting as the cause of his loss.
Powers had worked for the state of Kentucky for more than 20 years when he decided to run. He’s worked in the Department of Corrections, the Public Defender's office and other roles.
“I wanted everybody in the county to have a chance to choose,” Powers said.
Kemp’s first term was decided in the primary election in 2018.
While in office, Kemp faced several challenges outside of the courtroom including the COVID-19 pandemic and a devastating tornado in December 2021 which destroyed the Graves County Courthouse and jail. Kemp was recognized with the Ray Larson Sword of Justice Award in 2022 and as a Legendary Partner by the Child Advocacy Centers of Kentucky in 2020.
Powers has been involved in the criminal justice field since 1997. He started at the Graves County Jail. From there, he worked at the McCracken Regional Juvenile Detention Center, and then as a parole officer for Graves County and the Kentucky State Penitentiary. He graduated law school and passed the bar while working for the Department of Corrections. After suffering an injury that prevented him from continuing to work with the Department of Corrections, he spent some time with a private practice. Powers then got back into public service by working for the public defender’s office in Henderson and, in early 2024, he took a job as a prosecutor in Alaska.
“When I resigned from the state to go work in Alaska, I actually had 20 years with the state of Kentucky,” Powers said. “I've been involved in public service most of my life.”
Like Kemp, Powers thinks a person’s political party should be irrelevant when it comes to the job of a commonwealth’s attorney.
“I'm not going to ask somebody what their political party is,” Powers said. “If I'm prosecuting, that has nothing to do with what I'm doing.”
When Kemp held the office, he launched a newsletter and a website to tell people what was going on in his office and in local law enforcement. He also oversaw the creation of a Graves County-specific guidebook to aid victims of crimes in navigating the system.
Kemp also changed the way the office dealt with specific crimes, creating what he called the Vulnerable Victim Unit (VVU) to focus on prosecuting perpetrators of child physical and sexual abuse, domestic or sexual violence, human trafficking and the exploitation of elders.
Powers wants to continue Kemp’s focus on case with victims like murder and sexual assault cases – with some changes. He’s not planning to keep the VVU, instead encouraging everyone on his team to try sexual assault cases instead of having one specialist. For cases with substance abuse issues, he’s hoping to see those involved get into treatment programs for longer term help.
During his term, Powers hopes to streamline the workflow of the office, likening it to a triage situation.
“Commonwealth Attorney's Office is just like any other agency,” Powers said. “It don't have unlimited resources. You can't spend just unlimited amounts of time on every case. You've got to prioritize.”
Powers also doesn’t plan on posting regular updates for the community. He plans to keep the victims informed in cases and said that he has no issue providing any public record information to the press. He believes that those updates could shrink the potential jury pool in the county.
“I don't like the idea of tainting jury pools, especially since we have … had some people [displaced] from the tornado that haven't made it back, and we have a smaller jury pool than we've had in the past,” Powers said.
Powers said he didn’t really campaign for the position. According to the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance, he spent a little more than $1,200 on his campaign. He said that he put up some signs and had people putting out the word for him.
“I was more than willing to answer any question anybody asked me,” Powers said. “I didn't want to spend a lot of money, and I didn't spend anybody's money, but mine.”
Powers didn’t have any endorsements and said he didn’t seek any from anyone.
Kemp said he had one fundraiser during his reelection campaign where the office’s accomplishments were discussed. He had some newspaper ads and social media posts about his campaign. Kemp also had campaign signs posted around town.
It just wasn’t enough to get him reelected, he said.
“I campaigned hard and just come up short.”
