5 takeaways from 2024 elections: KY shows love for Trump, incumbents & public schools

Election Day in Kentucky, a reliable Republican stronghold, brought predictable results in the presidential election, but more scattered results for statewide races.

Kentucky was one of the first states the Associated Press called for Donald Trump on Tuesday night, who won the state's eight electoral votes with roughly 65% of the vote. It was the greatest margin he's enjoyed in the three times since appearing on the Kentucky presidential ballot.

The GOP slightly grew its supermajority in the state legislature, with the arguably most notable upset being House Democratic Caucus Chair Cherlynn Stevenson, who lost her seat to Republican newcomer Vanessa Grossl .

Grossl beat Stevenson by 1 percentage point for the House District 88 seat, according to unofficial results.

The state's congressional delegation also remained unchanged, as all six representatives won re-election. Lexington-area Congressman Andy Barr cruised to victory over Democrat Randy Cravens ., winning a seventh term

But voters weren't buying all that Republicans were selling.

Court of Appeals Judge Pamela Goodwine won a seat on the Kentucky Supreme Court over conservative Erin Izzo.

Goodwine, the first Black woman to be elected to the high court, pitched herself as a more nonpartisan option to Izzo, who campaigned as a "constitutional conservative."

And among the more blowout results of the night was the unequivocal rejection of Amendment 2. The ballot question brought by Republicans sought to change the constitution and allow lawmakers to divert public K-12 dollars outside the public school system to private, religious and charter schools. It was rejected by a 30-point margin.

State legislature holds steady... mostly

There were a lot of close calls in House races in the Louisville suburbs, in Fayette County and one very tight 30-vote margin in Northern Kentucky. But voters almost uniformly stuck with their incumbent representatives.

That is, with the exception of Stevenson, the House Democratic caucus chair.

Stevenson was in yet another tight race, but this time she found herself on the losing end as Representative-Elect Grossl flipped the district red by about 200 votes.

Stevenson, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the House, was seen by many in the party as the favorite to replace outgoing House Minority Floor Leader Derrick Graham, D-Frankfort. That race, which will get settled between election day and when legislative session begins in early January, is now much more of an open affair.

The loss came despite the strong backing of Beshear, who shot a television ad with Stevenson and supported her throughout the campaign.

On the other side of Lexington, Democratic Representative-Elect Adam Moore beat Thomas Jefferson for Rep. Killian Timoney's House District 45 seat in Fayette and Jessamine counties.

However, not all Republicans were strongly backing Jefferson. Unlike many others in tossup districts, Jefferson didn't benefit from independent expenditures linked to the state party or House Republican caucus.

Representative-elect T.J. Roberts said the Republican Party of Kentucky has a "pettiness problem" that manifested in its lack of major support for Jefferson.

"One mailer could have flipped that district," Roberts said in reference to Jefferson's lack of support from the party. "I look forward to the day when we can get over primary battles and come together."

"In every single purple district, outside groups were playing – except in that one. He ran a great campaign, but in districts like that, you need outside support," Roberts added.

Other results of note include Rep. Daniel Grossberg, D-Louisville, winning his Louisville House District 30 with more than 10,000 votes. That was the second-lowest vote total of any of the dozens of House members who didn't face opposition from the other party this year.

Grossberg, accused by multiple women of sexual harassment and misconduct , is the subject of a Legislative Ethics Commission probe . He ran unopposed to secure a second term.

Rep. Ashley Tackett Laferty, D-Prestonsburg, continues to be a lone blue dot in a sea of red in Eastern Kentucky. She cruised to victory by about 12 percentage points in her Floyd County-centric district.

Trump: King of Kentucky

The 45th and soon-to-be 47th president won 118 of Kentucky's 120 counties.

Compared to the 2020 election, every county in Kentucky shifted more toward Trump this time around. Rural, suburban and urban; diverse and less diverse; affluent and working class — every county moved somewhere from 10 to less than 1 percentage point to the right.

Fayette County voted for Harris roughly 80,000 to 56,000, an 18-point margin compared to a 21-plus point victory for Biden there in 2020. Every surrounding Central Kentucky county swung anywhere from two to four points to the right, as well.

The final statewide margin was 31 points for Trump over Harris. That's a huge improvement from the 26-point in 2020 and an even better outcome than his landslide 30-point win over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The least-improving counties are either affluent and suburban (Oldham and Campbell counties only swung a single percentage point) or already a deep shade of red like Owsley and Leslie counties in Eastern Kentucky.

One key political consequence of Trump's victory as that he still gets to play kingmaker in state-level races if he chooses to do so. 2023's GOP primary for governor was chock full of qualified and well-funded candidates, but former AG Daniel Cameron won that contest running away, largely because he scored the Trump endorsement.

Trump can wield a similar power if he chooses to do so in the 2026 race for U.S. Senate — that is, if 82-year-old Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell declines to run for re-election.

November 2026 is far away, but there are a handful of potential candidates who could score both the approval of voters and of Trump.

Cameron, who lost to Beshear by five points in last year's general election, has been a mainstay on conservative television via his new anti-"ESG" organization and was a Trump surrogate at the political speaking event Fancy Farm.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft has retained her ties to Trump via fundraising with her billionaire coal magnate and philanthropist husband Joe Craft. If she doesn't take an administration role, it's possible she's gearing up for a Senate rune.

A wildcard in all this is Nate Morris, a politico-turned-entrepreneur who founded the Lexington-based waste technology company Rubicon. Morris has been active in attending political functions in recent years, has a book on the way and money to spend. In 2022 alone, he made $41 million according to outlet Waste Dive.

As he has let us know through social media posts, Morris also has ties to Vice President-Elect JD Vance, whose story as a political outsider with deep pockets from a heartland state mirrors Morris'.

Then there's 6th Congressional District Rep. Andy Barr. The Lexington Republican was the Trump campaign's state chair and could seek an endorsement for higher office, particularly if he doesn't win the position of chair on the Financial Services Committee. That's a committee on which he's been very active that has broad jurisdiction over the financial sector.

A little more on Barr

Barr also won big on Tuesday night. It was hard to get a read on his popularity in the newly drawn 6th Congressional District in 2022 given that his opponent, perennial candidate Geoff Young, did not have the support of the state Democrats including Beshear.

But the read this year was clear: The district likes Barr. He won by a resounding 27 points, only two points lower than his margin against Young, and it appears Democratic voters crossed the aisle to support him.

Look no further than Fayette County. Though Harris won it by 18 points, Barr's Democratic opponent Randy Cravens only won by 2 points. As Republican insiders will often say, the support of Fayette County (as well as the only more populous county in the state, Jefferson) is tantamount to winning statewide primaries.

The surrounding counties also uniformly shifted Barr's way compared to Trump.

The biggest loser: Amendment 2

In all of Kentucky's 120 counties, voters rejected Amendment 2 .

The average margin of loss was 29 points. The closest vote county, where the measure only lost by six points, was McCreary County, where it failed 52.9% to 47.1%, according to the Washington Post's unofficial results . Statewide, the measure failed 65% to 35%.

The product of a priority bill passed during the General Assembly's regular session earlier this year, many Republicans have long championed "school choice" measures, passing two into law previously .

But both were blocked by the courts and declared unconstitutional , since the state constitution expressly prohibits the use of tax dollars for education to be "raised or collected" for a purpose "other than in common schools."

Republicans, then, sought to change the wording of the constitution, which is how voters got Amendment 2.

Public school advocates were quick to attribute the results to statewide support for the legislature to invest more in Kentucky's public school systems, not propose taking funds away.

The Kentucky Education Association, which represents all 171 school districts in the commonwealth, called the overwhelming rejection of the measure a victory for " equity, fairness and economic justice " in the state's public education system.

The results "confirm that voters want public tax dollars devoted solely to public school resources," KEA added.

This message was echoed Tuesday night at a celebration hosted by Protect Our Schools KY, a grassroots group that campaigned against Amendment 2.

Eddie Campbell, choir director for Knox County High School and KEA President, said voters "bridged the partisan divide and took a stand for students and public schools."

Campbell said the message was unequivocal: "Citizens have made clear that investing in our public education is a non-negotiable."

Nonpartisan losses for conservatives

A theme is starting to emerge: Conservative priorities and picks are not winning nonpartisan battles.

2022's anti-abortion Amendment 2 lost. Also that year, two Kentucky Supreme Court candidates and one Franklin Circuit Court candidate ran as openly "conservative" and received heavy backing from conservative groups; all of them lost handily.

This year, the largely GOP-backed Amendment 2 lost, and Goodwine beat the Republican-supported Erin Izzo.

One difference this year compared to years prior is how loudly Beshear supported the Supreme Court candidate. Beshear and his political groups committed early to Goodwine, who delivered his oath of office for his second inauguration.

What this means for conservative behavior on nonpartisan measures like court races and ballot measures is uncertain, but there may have already been a shift in the way Goodwine's race was handled.

Though the Kentucky Supreme Court District 5 did support Trump in 2020, and by a wider margin in 2024, conservative organizations didn't try to pump nearly as much money to support her as they did for previous conservative-branded judicial candidates.

The balance of the Kentucky Supreme Court is not nearly as well-documented as the Supreme Court of the United States. But, many Republicans groan at the current makeup.

With Goodwine's win, GOP groups have gone out of their way to try and defeat at least three different justices – Shea Nickell, Kelly Thompson and Michelle Keller.

It's unclear what the downstream effect of this will be.

However, some Republicans in Frankfort foresee a court that will be willing to go against them in certain situations. This could be a new battleground in Frankfort, as the legislature is dominated by Republicans who hold four-fifths majorities and Beshear could be replaced by a Republican in 2027.