Kentucky State Profile To learn about other states and their elected officials, purchase The Almanac of American Politics 2008.

For many years Kentucky was a competitive state when Democrats ran a Southerner or two on their ticket, as in such widely separated years as 1952, 1976, 1980, 1992 and 1996. In 2000 Al Gore initially targeted Kentucky, which is just north of his home state of Tennessee and which the Clinton-Gore ticket carried twice. But Kentucky was part of the rural trend away from Clinton Democrats and toward Republicans in the 1990s, and Gore had taken stands seen as hostile to the state’s leading industries—tobacco, coal and automobiles. Early polls showed Bush far ahead, and Gore took his ads off Kentucky stations and took the state off his schedule. Bush swept the state, 57%-41%. In 2004 Kentucky was never on anyone’s list of battleground states and Bush won 60%-40%. Bush lost Jefferson County 50%-49% but carried 108 of the 119 other counties; Kerry carried just 11 counties in the eastern mountains. Bush’s percentage increased robustly in the southeastern mountains, in the Bluegrass region around Lexington and in the Jackson Purchase in far western Kentucky; he lost ground appreciably only in some northeastern mountain counties. Bush carried voters in all age and income groups; he won 71% among white evangelical or born again Protestants, who made up 45% of the electorate.

Kentucky was part of the Super Tuesday primary in March 1988, but switched back to a May date in 1992, so that state and presidential contests can be held on the same day. It has had no effect on the outcome of the presidential contest.