County Read No. 7 · Hardin County
Elizabethtown and Fort Knox. Cameron carried Hardin by 175 votes in 2023; Trump carried it by 14,100 a year later. Twenty-six of its 58 precincts flipped between the two. The reason none of that reaches a legislative seat: the no-party column is one in seven voters and turned out at 17% in 2023 — the lowest in the series — and the one close race on the ballot is a House seat where neither candidate has reported a dollar.
Saturday, October 3, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
County Read No. 6 · Warren County
Bowling Green's county was Democratic by nineteen points on paper in 2010 and is Republican by seven now. It swings 28 points between a Trump ballot and a Beshear ballot — the widest in the series so far — and none of it matters in November, because all six of its legislative seats are Republican and all six are unopposed. Six incumbents, $527,000, nobody to spend it on.
Friday, October 2, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
County Read No. 5 · Boone County
Boone is the fastest-growing big county in Kentucky and the most Republican of the twenty on a federal ballot. Trump carried it by 37; Kamala Harris carried none of its sixty precincts. Beshear cut the margin to twelve and carried nine. Its Republicans out-vote its Democrats by eleven points in a presidential year, and three of its six House seats have no Democrat on the ballot.
Thursday, October 1, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
The read · Fayette and Northern Kentucky
Democrats are contesting 17 of the 22 House districts in Fayette County and Northern Kentucky this fall, up from 16 last time — and one of the four closest seats lost its Democrat to a signature challenge in May. Four of them turned on 30, 125, 172 votes and twelve points in 2024. The precinct map says which two are real, the money says which two are funded, and only one seat is both.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
County Read No. 4 · Kenton County
Covington's county was even on paper in 2010 and is Republican by eleven on paper now. Trump carried it by 22 and Beshear carried it by six, twelve months apart. The reason it isn't a swing county in November is the same every year: its registered Republicans out-vote its registered Democrats by three to eleven points, and its no-party column — the biggest share in Kentucky — barely votes at all.
Tuesday, September 29, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
The read · The electorate
386,382 Kentuckians are registered in neither party — one in nine voters, and growing in 113 of 120 counties. None of them could vote in May. All of them can vote in November. They turn out fifteen to twenty points below everyone else, they live in Northern Kentucky, the Army counties and the suburbs, and no campaign in this state has a plan for them.
Monday, September 28, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
County Read No. 3 · Fayette County
Lexington is the one big county in Kentucky that moved toward the Democrats on the presidential ballot — seventeen points in twelve years — and its registered Democrats out-vote its Republicans in almost every election. It has nine House seats, one real race, one Democrat out-raising everyone in the state, and one seat the Democrats lost in court before a vote was cast.
Saturday, September 26, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
The read · The electorate
Registration for November ends October 5. Since the primary the rolls grew by 16,353 — and the Democratic column didn't get a single one of them. Fifteen counties have flipped to Republican on paper since 2024, including Pike and Woodford. The map of where the new voters actually landed says something else.
Friday, September 25, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
County Read No. 2 · Jefferson County
The biggest county in Kentucky is 56% Democratic on paper, votes 16 points Democratic in a presidential year and 40 in a Beshear year, and its registered Republicans have out-voted its registered Democrats in the last two federal elections. Eighteen House seats sit inside it. Seven are Republican. This year the Democrats are contesting six of them and the Republicans are contesting four of the other eleven.
Thursday, September 24, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
The read · Jefferson County
Jefferson County votes on four state Senate seats this fall. One is Karen Berg's, and she's earned it. One has no Democrat in it. The other two are live: a teacher from Middletown in a district that went Trump by two, and a physician from Oldham County in one that went Beshear by twelve. The precinct maps say where each of them wins it.
Wednesday, September 23, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
County Read No. 1 · Oldham County
First in a series: the twenty biggest counties in Kentucky, one at a time, by the numbers. Oldham has gotten redder on paper every year since 2010 and bluer at the ballot box since 2016. In 2023 its registered Democrats out-voted its registered Republicans and Beshear lost the county by 225 votes. This fall, for the first time in the data, there's a Democrat on every legislative line of the ballot.
Tuesday, September 22, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
The take
Every campaign in Kentucky is being sold AI this year, and most of the pitches are for the one thing it does worst. Here's where it actually earns its keep — and the three places I'd keep it out.
Monday, September 21, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
The read · Turnout
In a Trump-era federal election, registered Republicans in Kentucky turn out four to nine points better than registered Democrats. In a Beshear election the gap disappears. Two maps show where the gap actually lives — and it isn't where the map sends your eye first.
Friday, September 18, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
Field notes
MyVoters is the file. MyCampaign is your people. Seven weeks out, the campaigns that will use October well are the ones running the two against each other now — and the first thing the join turns up is a number nobody wants to see.
Wednesday, September 16, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
2026 · KY-06
Andy Barr scrubbed 16 Trump references on July 16. Ralph Alvarado scrubbed five more on August 19. Every public poll of the 6th is a Democratic internal — so read the campaigns' behavior instead. It's the most honest number in the race.
Monday, September 14, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
2026 · The electorate
The Democratic column has lost 16 points of the state since 2010, and most of it never cast a Democratic vote. Who's gone, who's new, why the headline number predicts the least — and what to do about it before the books close October 5.
Thursday, September 10, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
Field notes
It's the question every campaign gets in September, and most of them answer it wrong in one of two directions. Here's the ladder that turns a postcard table into a knocking crew — and the one rung almost nobody builds.
Friday, August 28, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
The read · Kentucky Senate
Kentucky's Senate is 30 Republicans to 7 Democrats. No turnout year fixes that. But nineteen seats are on the ballot in November, ten of them drew no Democrat at all last time, and three of those ten finally have one.
Wednesday, August 26, 2026 · Lisa Tanner Norkus
