The 2011 Kentucky Secretary of State election was held on November 8, 2011, to elect the Secretary of State of Kentucky. Primaries for this election were held on Tuesday, May 17, 2011. In the general election, Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes defeated Republican Bill Johnson. Background Secretary of State Elaine Walker, a Democrat and former mayor of Bowling Green, was appointed on January 29, 2011 to fill the unexpired term of Trey Grayson. Grayson, a Republican, ran in the 2010 race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, but he lost in the Republican primary to Rand Paul (who went on to be elected to the Senate). Grayson subsequently resigned to take a position at the Harvard Institute of Politics. On January 7, 2011, Governor Steve Beshear announced that he would appoint Walker as the new Secretary of State of Kentucky, following Grayson's announcement of resignation. Walker was sworn in on January 29, 2011, inside Supreme Court chambers. She was eligible to run for a full term, and had indicated she would do so. However, she was defeated in the Democratic primary by Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Lexington lawyer and the daughter of former Kentucky Democratic Party State Chairman Jerry Lundergan, who was supported by a faction of the state's Democratic establishment. Grimes announced her candidacy at rallies in three cities, attended by Lieutenant Governor Daniel Mongiardo, state House Speaker Greg Stumbo and former Governor and current state Senator Julian Carroll. Democratic consultant Dale Emmons, who was working for Grimes' campaign, said she also had the endorsements of U.S. Representative Ben Chandler and Lexington Mayor Jim Gray. The contested primary was the result of a long-standing feud among Kentucky Democrats. Joseph Gerth, a columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal, wrote that "the betting money is that the selection of Walker is more about an old political grudge between Beshear and former Democratic Chairman Jerry Lundergan than it is about getting a rural Democrat on the November ballot." Democratic State Representative Jody Richards of Bowling Green had been mentioned as a possible candidate for secretary of state, but he said on November 8 that he was not interested in running. Other Democrats who had been mentioned as possible candidates were state Senator Ed Worley of Richmond, Louisville attorney Jennifer Moore and former Miss America Heather French Henry, the wife of former Lieutenant Governor Steve Henry. Bill Johnson, a businessman from Todd County in