Kentucky Political News Headlines

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

KY Election Update



Last night we provided you an unofficial and timely update on Kentucky's election results. In doing so we had a couple of errors in our report on the State House races and we wanted to correct that in this update. In addition, we wanted to provide a bit more information on the state legislative candidates that won the various seats last night.

State House
Republicans in the House will maintain a super majority after last night's election. Based on unofficial results it appears the GOP will control the House 61-39, a net loss of two seats. It is worth noting that there were 4 incumbents who lost in races decided by less than 10 votes, so if there are recanvasses or recounts that lead to different outcomes then the numbers in the House could change slightly.

There were 8 incumbents defeated last night, 6 GOP and 2 Democrats. In addition, there were 24 open seats last night, with 14 won by GOP and 10 by Democrats. This means that there will be 32 new members of the 100-seat House when it convenes in January. Below is more information on last night's results:

Incumbents who lost 8 (6 GOP-2 DEM)

Jeff Greer (D) by Nancy Tate (R)
Linda Belcher (D) by Thomas Huff (R)
Toby Herald by Cluster Howard (D)
DJ Johnson (R) by Jim Glenn (D)
Phil Moffett (R) by Tina Bojanowski (D)
Ken Fleming (R) by Maria Sorolis (D)
Larry Brown (R) by Ashley Laferty (D)
Jill York (R) by Kathy Hinkle (D)

Open seats 24 (14 GOP-10 DEM)

Randy Bridges (R) (Created by Watkins (D) retirement)
Larry Elkins (R) (Created by Imes (R) retirement)
Chris Freeland (R) (Created by Coursey (D) retirement)
Scott Lewis (R) (Created by Castlen (R) running for Senate)
Steve Sheldon (R) (Created by Decesare (R) retirement)
Savannah Maddox (R) (Created by Linder (R) retirement)
Ed Massey (R) (Created by Wuchner (R) retirement)
Travis Brenda (R) (Defeated incumbent Shell (R) in Primary)
Matthew Koch (R) (Created by Overly (D) retirement)
Les Yates (R) (Created by Mayfield (R) retirement)
Deanna Frazier (R) (Defeated incumbent Morgan (R) in Primary)
Adam Bowling (R) (Created by Nelson (D) retirement)
Bobby McCool (R) (Created by Wells (R) retirement)
Derek Lewis (R) (Defeated incumbent Tim Couch (R) in Primary)
Rob Wiederstein (D) (Created by Mills (R) running for Senate)
Patti Minter (D) (Created by Richards (D) retirement)
Josie Raymond (D) (Created by Riggs (D) retirement)
Nima Kulkarni (D) (Defeated incumbent Horlander (D) in Primary)
Charles Booker (D) (Created by Owens (D) retirement)
Joe Graviss (D) (Created by Kay (D) retirement)
Buddy Wheatley (D) (Created by Simpson (D) retirement)
Cherlynn Stevenson (D) (Created by Benvenuti (R) retirement)
Terri Clark (D) (Created by Sinnette (D) retirement)
Lisa Willner (D) (Created by Wayne (D) retirement)

State Senate
Republicans in the Senate will grow their super majority after last night's election. Based on unofficial results it appears the GOP will control the Senate 28-10, a net gain of one seat after successfully defending 16 incumbents, winning an open seat, and beating one incumbent Senate Democrat Caucus Chairman Dorsey Ridley. Sen. Parrett (D) ran unopposed and Sen. Webb (D) won re-election. More details on the two changes in the Senate after last night's results:

Matt Castlen (R) (Won open seat created by Bowen (R) retirement)
Robby Mills (R) (Defeated incumbent Dorsey Ridley (D))


We will have additional analysis in the days and weeks ahead.