RE: Kentucky has officially flipped from Democrat to Republican
I’m not getting it. I thought Kentucky was always a red state. She voted for Bush Jr Twice, John McCain in 2008, Romney in 2012 and Trump in 2016 and 2020.
Both their senators, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul are Republicans. How did Kentucky need to flip? She’s been Republican for at least 2 decades.
Hardly. Democrats held virtually every office for 100 years or more. Even today, there have been only 2-3 Republican governors in the last 100 years. The current governor is a Democrat because the Republican governor before him actually tried to fix Kentucky's very broken pension plan which ticked off the teachers, but I expect he'll be gone next election.
For decades, you could watch the Presidential election results and get the winner at 7PM Eastern time when the poles in KY closed in the part of the state that is in the Central Time Zone. That held true until Obama.
When I was a kid, there was "no such thing" as a Republican. A politician could be liberal or conservative, but he had to call himself a Democrat if he wanted any chance of being elected. Of course, there were exceptions, but not many.
For a long time, I wondered why KY held its elections in May instead of November like other states. Finally, I realized that the winner of the Democrat primary, held in May, was virtually assured of winning in November. I'd say that Democrats running for Governor would spend 90% of their campaign money in the primary and only 10% in the general election.
I’m not getting it. I thought Kentucky was always a red state. She voted for Bush Jr Twice, John McCain in 2008, Romney in 2012 and Trump in 2016 and 2020.
Both their senators, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul are Republicans. How did Kentucky need to flip? She’s been Republican for at least 2 decades.
But when you get to state and local races, the DemocRATS dominated. The legislature and governorship were dominated by the DemocRAT party.
Kentucky traditionally voted dem locally and statewide and then rep for national offices.
We have a Dem Governor, Adolf Andy Beashear, he won by 4000 votes with dominion voting machines.
Kentucky was a battleground state up until 2000. Democrats had a stranglehold for an even longer period of time on local an state offices. McConnell has had a long term project to first flip the congressional delegation, then work on the state and local offices. Though he really doesn’t have the personal hold he used to have - but at one time, he was the only thing anyone seeking political power outside the Democrat machine could latch onto to avoid the wrath of the Democrats. It was that bad.