The Blue Wave Hits Central Kentucky

Democrat Zach Dembo is set to flip a GOP-leaning Kentucky congressional seat that, until recently, Republicans felt confident they would hold. His opponent, Ralph Alvarado, conceded Tuesday evening.

Dembo is a Navy veteran and former federal prosecutor in Lexington, who also served as an adviser to Andy Beshear and received strong backing from the popular Democratic governor. He ran a campaign based on combatting corruption and addressing the cost of living. He also hammered his opponent, Alvarado, for his connections to the toxically unpopular Matt Bevin, who once served as Kentucky governor but more recently served two weeks in jail for civil contempt of court after failing to turn over records in a divorce and child support case.

Alvarado had campaigned in the primary as a strong MAGA warrior, but he tried to make an independent pivot in the general election, in part by scrubbing his website of Trump references.

Republicans may have thought they had locked up the sixth congressional district in central Kentucky for the whole decade after redrawing it in 2022. It was a relatively modest gerrymander compared to those implemented recently in states like Texas and Florida. They removed the small but occasionally Democratic-leaning state capital of Frankfort from the district, relocating it to a strongly Republican district that now stretches nearly 300 miles from the Mississippi River to the Bluegrass horse country. 

That was enough to help Rep. Andy Barr—elected to the US Senate Tuesday to succeed Mitch McConnell—romp to victory in the district with 63 percent of the vote in 2024.

But that redraw wasn’t enough this year, as voters across the country seemed to be rebelling against Republican rule that has led to spiking prices, historically chaotic governance, and rank corruption in DC.

It’s the first time since 2010 that a Democrat has won the seat. And it’s a major boon for the party after Democrat Amy McGrath came up short there in 2018.