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How Clinton won Kentucky
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Presidential election in Kentucky, 2016
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 Date: November 8, 2016 |
Winner: Donald Trump (R) Hillary Clinton (D) • Jill Stein (G) • Gary Johnson (L) • Vice presidential candidates |
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May 18, 2016
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed a razor-thin victory over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the May 17 Kentucky Democratic presidential primary, marking the first time since April 26 that she’s won a primary.
Even though Clinton had handily won Democratic presidential primary in Kentucky eight years ago against Barack Obama, her recent losses in neighboring West Virginia and Indiana to Sanders indicated that she could hardly take anything for granted in the Bluegrass State. But she invested time stumping the state and her campaign’s spending on television advertising, while less than the Sanders effort, was competitive.
| Kentucky Democratic Primary, 2016 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes | Delegates | |
 Hillary Clinton |
46.8% | 212,534 | 28 | |
| Bernie Sanders | 46.3% | 210,623 | 27 | |
| Martin O'Malley | 1.3% | 5,713 | 0 | |
| Rocky De La Fuente | 0.4% | 1,594 | 0 | |
| Other | 5.3% | 24,101 | 0 | |
| Totals | 454,565 | 55 | ||
| Source: The New York Times and Kentucky Secretary of State | ||||
She carried the two largest vote-producing counties in the primary, Jefferson (Louisville) and Fayette (Lexington). Her margin of victory in Jefferson, where almost one-quarter of the state’s total Democratic primary vote was cast, was particularly impressive: She beat Sanders there by 57-to-40 percent. In the 2008 primary, Obama bested Clinton in Jefferson by 53-to-44 percent.
Clinton also won more prosperous suburban and exurban counties around the state: Oldham and Shelby outside of Louisville; Scott, outside of Lexington; and Boone, Campbell and Kenton in the northern tip of the state which are just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.
Pending the final tally of a smattering of absentee and provisional ballots in this extremely close race, Sanders won 83 of the state’s 120 counties. He defeated Clinton in the coal-producing and rural regions in the eastern and western parts of the state, and also won Bullitt, a blue-collar suburban county outside of Louisville, and the faster growing counties of Jessamine and Woodford outside of Lexington.
Kentucky is the third largest producer of automobiles and light trucks in the country. Both Democrats could lay claim to car (and truck) counties, but Clinton probably gets the edge on this turf as well. She won Jefferson (a Ford production center) and Scott (Toyota), but Sanders won Warren (General Motors). Sanders won Daviess, Madison and Mercer which are auto-parts manufacturing centers, but Clinton carried Boone, Christian, Marion and Pulaski also home to auto-parts suppliers. (To be sure, like the rest of the state, the margin of victory in some of these counties was narrow.)
But it may have been the vote for “uncommitted” that doomed Sanders in the state. Overall, more than five percent of the Kentucky Democratic primary voters cast uncommitted ballots and in the counties where that vote was the highest were also ones were Clinton was less popular. In the 20 counties where the uncommitted vote was 10 percent or higher, the three-way vote split this way: Sanders, 53 percent; Clinton, 34 percent; uncommitted, 13 percent. And of those 20 counties, Sanders won 18.
Several of these were coal counties where Clinton had swamped Obama in the primary eight years ago, but that turned against her sharply on Tuesday: Webster, Union, Pike, Letcher, Hopkins, Breathitt and Floyd. It seems as though many voters in these counties were blaming Clinton for her association with the Obama administration, but couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Sanders whose stance on environmental regulations is arguably more liberal than Clinton’s.
The two counties where the uncommitted vote was the lowest in the state were the two that provided Clinton with her biggest vote margins over Sanders—Jefferson and Fayette.
James A. Barnes is a senior writer for Ballotpedia and co-author of the 2016 edition of the Almanac of American Politics. He is a member of the CNN Decision Desk and will help to project the Democratic and Republican winners throughout the election cycle.
See also
- Presidential candidates, 2016
- Presidential debates (2015-2016)
- Presidential election, 2016/Polls
- 2016 presidential candidate ratings and scorecards
- Presidential election, 2016/Straw polls
