In the 2024 election, Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump. Much has been written about why this happened by thousands of people with varying levels of expertise. Lots of conversations are needed among all sorts of folks within the Democratic coalition about messaging, fundraising tactics, and many other subjects. However, I live in Kentucky, where Presidential politics *happens* to us – we don’t actually get to participate in it.

This is not to say that Presidential politics do not *matter* to us – they matter a great deal. “Top of the ticket” performance informs almost all of the underlying vote for races in which Kentuckians *do* get to participate: races for state legislature, Metro Council, Magistrate, Judge Executive, County Attorney, and many, many more. Unpacking how Presidential politics is trending in the state seems like something worth visiting.

Earlier this fall, I was retained by a county party to investigate how the election went for their local races, and I discovered a phenomenon, which I have nicknamed the “Trump Triangle.” Donald Trump has been the Republican candidate for three straight elections. In both 2016 and 2024, Democrats won about 48% of the vote nationally, while in 2020, Joe Biden won about 51% of the vote. Similarly, here in Kentucky, Hillary Clinton earned 33% of the vote, Kamala Harris earned about 34% of the vote, and Joe Biden earned 36% of the vote. The trend forms a little triangle:

With that, I hope we can take at face value that national politics matter greatly to the vote down the ballot. If you want more evidence, I can provide it: nearly every race I investigated had some sort of triangle like this, owing, in my estimation, to the impact of national trends on the vote for state and local races.

Evaluating Presidential elections in Kentucky is, at the moment, something that not a lot of people do. Kentucky is a safe Republican state. Barring some sort of major realignment or a unique candidate (which absolutely could happen at any time – politics evolves very slowly with occasional sudden and unexpected bursts of upheaval), Kentucky will likely stay Republican in future Presidential elections. However, *on the margins,* the trend in vote share for Democratic Presidential candidates in Kentucky matters quite a bit. In races where the margins are usually tight (the 88th and 43rd House District, the 16th and 18th Metro Council Districts in Louisville, for example), an extra point or two for the Presidential candidate could make all the difference. 

That being said, this is a good thing for Democrats:

This graph shows the difference between the state and national vote for the Democratic presidential candidate over the past three elections. Kentucky has improved about 1% against the national vote during that time, from about 15 points worse than the nation as a whole to 14% worse. Again – this doesn’t mean Kentucky is approaching swing state status, but it does mean that our state is trend in the right direction (IMO), and close races will need less of an outstanding performance at the top of the ticket in order to result in wins for Democrats.

Consider this example: Mera Kathryn Corlett was the Democratic candidate in 18th district of Louisville’s Metro Council in both 2020 and 2024. In 2020, she earned 46.2% of the vote, in a year when Joe Biden managed to earn 51.3% of the vote nationally. In 2024, she earned 45.9% of the vote. While a cursory analysis may lead to the conclusion that Ms. Corlett did worse in 2024, using my “triangles” theory, she improved significantly cycle over cycle. She ran 5.1% behind the top of the ticket in 2020 and 2.3% behind the top of the ticket in 2024. I think it’s more productive, accurate, and insightful to view local races like Metro Council seats *against the top of the ticket* as opposed to looking at the final vote tallies without context. So: good job to Ms. Corlett for improving her standing by 3% points over the cycle. That’s the mark of well run campaign.

While the entirety of Kentucky has improved by 1% since 2016, the changes are not even across the state. There are places where Democrats are improving significantly, and places where Democrats are doing worse over time.

Here are the seven counties improving the most rapidly across the state.  Our “triangle” shape is significantly more obtuse in these counties, because their 2024 vote did not drop as steeply as the rest of the county. This view is probably more useful:

This mimics the chart above, which was shown for the whole of Kentucky. For those of us who know Kentucky geography, this chart makes clear that national political trends are true in Kentucky. Our urban counties (Jefferson and Fayette) are racing towards Democrats: Louisville was a county that was +5 against the national vote in 2016 – by 2024, the county was +9. Fayette County was +3 against the national vote in 2016, and is now more Democratic than Louisville. Suburban counties continue to march leftward at a faster pace but from a lower initial base of support: Kenton and Campbell (Cincinnati), Woodford (Lexington), and Oldham (Louisville) are still about 5-10% worse than the national vote total, but each of them have improved by 5-7% compared to the national Democratic vote total over the past two cycles. Franklin County, which voted Democratic *until* 2016, is not improving at the same clip as the urban or suburban counties, but has improved in both the 2020 and 2024 cycles, and remains Kentucky’s third most Democratic county.

I hope that this reframes some of the conversation about the 2024 election in Kentucky. While much of the conversation has centered around the overall lack of change in the state legislature and some lost seats in the Metro Council, the underlying trends, divorced from national politics, are strong for Democrats. In a different context, when Democrats nationally have a *good* night for once, it could be the case that trends in some of these improving counties will push a substantial number of seats for state and local offices into competition.