Kentucky

Andy Barr beat Democrat Charles Booker, 55.0% to 42.9%. The one federal office to change hands was the 6th Congressional District, where Democrat Zach Dembo beat Republican Ralph Alvarado by 9.4 points in a district Trump had carried by 14.9. The delegation is now four Republicans and two Democrats, from five and one. Morgan McGarvey kept the 3rd District for the Democrats by 40.7 points. Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear was not on the ballot, and neither were the other statewide constitutional officers, whom Kentucky elects every four years counting from 1895.^{1, 2}

Barr’s margin was 18.5 points narrower than Trump’s. Both parties drew fewer votes than in 2024, Republicans far fewer: Charles Booker drew 87 votes for every 100 Kamala Harris won in Kentucky, and Barr 59 for every 100 of Trump’s. The votes counted come to 96% of the 2022 total and 69% of the 2024 presidential vote. Republicans won the statewide House vote R+10.0, after R+46.2 in 2024.

The narrowing was close to uniform. Kentucky’s part of the Cincinnati area moved furthest, 18.7 points, from R+30.9 to R+12.3. The Lexington area moved least, 15.3 points, and that was enough to take it from R+1.4 to D+13.9. The Louisville area, which casts 25% of the vote, went from R+1.6 to D+14.9. The small towns and rural counties, with 37% of the vote, moved 17.6 points and stayed Republican at R+37.8.

Of Kentucky’s 120 counties, only one voted for Trump in 2024 and for the Democrat this year: Franklin County, around Frankfort, went from R+4.9 to D+11.6 on 19,935 votes. Others moved further and stayed Republican. Pike County, around Pikeville, made the widest swing, 23.8 points, and still voted for Barr by 41.6. Kenton County, in the Cincinnati area, went from R+21.7 to R+2.3, and Scott County, near Lexington, from R+27.7 to R+6.6. The two largest counties, Jefferson County and Fayette County, moved less, to D+31.9 and D+31.6. No county moved toward the Republicans.

Control of state government did not change: Beshear remains governor, and Republicans kept supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly.^{1, 3, 4} The majorities shrank. Democrats took Senate Districts 6 and 36, which leaves the chamber at 30 Republicans and 8 Democrats by MultiState’s count.^{3, 4} In the House, Spectrum News and FOX19 reported seven Democratic gains, which would take an 80 to 20 chamber to 73 to 27; MultiState had it at 73 to 26 with one race still being counted.^{1, 3, 4} The Republican incumbents Spectrum News named as losing House seats included Jared Bauman, Chris Lewis, Susan Witten, Matt Lockett and Ken Fleming, most of them in Louisville, and the gains came in suburban districts near Louisville, Lexington and in northern Kentucky.³ Beshear said the nine seats were the first net gain for Kentucky Democrats in more than ten years.¹

The arithmetic of vetoes is unchanged. Section 88 of the constitution lets a majority of all the members elected to each chamber override a governor, which is 51 votes in the House and 20 in the Senate, and Republicans remain far above both.^{1, 5} The same majorities control the next legislative maps: the General Assembly redistricts its own seats every ten years, and a map is subject to the governor’s veto and the same override.^{5, 6} The secretary of state is elected statewide for four years at the same election as the governor, so that office was not on this ballot either.^{2, 7}

Senate President Robert Stivers said national politics reached into state races and that Republicans would keep their course; he named the defeats of Sen. Julie Raque Adams and Majority Whip Jason Nemes as a loss of experience. “We’re going to continue to do things that make this state grow,” he told Spectrum News on November 5.⁸ The new legislators take their seats when the session begins in January 2027.³

An amendment the General Assembly proposes becomes part of the Kentucky Constitution when a majority of the votes cast for and against it are for it.⁹ Voters narrowed the governor’s own powers. Amendment 1 passed with 70.7% voting yes in our count; it bars a governor from issuing pardons or commuting sentences from 60 days before a gubernatorial election until the fifth Tuesday after it.¹⁰

Louisville held its first mayoral election without party labels, after a 2024 change to state law, and Mayor Craig Greenberg won a second term over Shameka Parrish-Wright, by 130,671 votes to 96,272 in the Jefferson County clerk’s unofficial summary.^{11, 12} Democrat Sarah Martin had no opponent on the ballot for Jefferson County attorney. Five district seats on the Jefferson County school board were on the ballot, and two were close in the clerk’s figures: Lillian Brents led Tim Shaughnessy in District 2 by 14,898 votes to 13,896 in a five-way race, and Kyle N. Killebrew led Carrie Donovan in District 5 by 9,940 to 9,053.¹²

Republicans won again in five of the offices in our count that they held, and only two of those races were within 20 points: the Senate seat and the 4th District, where Ed Gallrein won by 13.4 points after Trump had won by 35.3. Barr carried 117 of the 120 counties. Republicans also kept their supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly, MultiState reported.⁴

Rand Paul’s Senate seat will be on the ballot in 2028, in a state that voted R+30.6 for president in 2024 and R+12.1 in this year’s Senate race. Kentucky votes sooner than that. The governor and the other constitutional officers are elected every four years counting from 1895, so those offices will be on the ballot in November 2027; the governor serves four years and is ineligible for the four years after a second consecutive term.^{2, 13, 14}

The House count is not final. MultiState listed one race as still being counted when it put the chamber at 73 Republicans and 26 Democrats.⁴