Kentucky 2026 Election Results: Barr Holds the Open U.S. Senate Seat, Pardon-Limit Amendment Passes with 70.7%

Governor and U.S. Senator

Kentucky voted in the 2026 midterm elections on November 3. The results below are the collective choice of the state's voters. According to the Kentucky State Board of Elections' official count and Associated Press race calls, there was no governor's race and no statewide executive office on this ballot. Rep. Andy Barr won the open U.S. Senate seat left by Mitch McConnell's retirement with 55.0%, a Republican hold. The ballot's single constitutional amendment passed with 70.7%. All six U.S. House seats have been called, with Democrats gaining one by flipping District 6, and Republicans kept supermajorities in both legislative chambers. Statewide turnout was 42.6%.

Governor: no election this year. Kentucky elects its governor in odd years; Gov. Andy Beshear (D) is in his second term, and the next governor's race, an open-seat contest, is in 2027. Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman (D) is elected on the governor's ticket and faced no election this year.

U.S. Senator: Andy Barr (R), 784,869 votes, 55.0%, elected. Called by the AP. The seat was open after Mitch McConnell, who had held it since 1985, retired; Barr, a congressman since 2013, moves to the Senate and Republicans held the seat.

U.S. Senate, other candidates: Charles Booker (D), 612,357 votes, 42.9%; Christopher Campbell (Kentucky Party), 29,892 votes, 2.1%. The state's other senator, Rand Paul (R), was not up this year and is next contested in 2028; both Kentucky Senate seats are now Republican-held.

Other Statewide Offices

No other statewide office was on the ballot: all of Kentucky's constitutional offices are elected in odd years alongside the governor, next in 2027. The incumbents — Secretary of State Michael Adams, Attorney General Russell Coleman, Treasurer Mark Metcalf, Auditor Allison Ball and Agriculture Commissioner Jonathan Shell — are all Republicans. Other state agency heads are appointed by the governor and face no election.

Ballot Questions

Amendment 1 (constitutional amendment, limiting the governor's pardon and commutation powers): bar the governor from issuing pardons or commutations from 60 days before a gubernatorial election until the fifth Tuesday after it, the inauguration. Yes 896,220 votes, 70.7%; No 371,660 votes, 29.3% — passed. Called by the AP. It was the ballot's only statewide amendment — there was no Amendment 2 — and local races and questions, such as mayors and city councils, are not part of this section.

U.S. House

Overview: all six seats were up and all six have been called. Republicans held five seats to the Democrats' one before the election; afterwards they hold four to two, a net Democratic gain of one.

District 1: James Comer (R, incumbent), 154,910 votes, 67.6%, reelected over John Williams (D), 74,260 votes, 32.4%.

District 2: Brett Guthrie (R, incumbent), 145,139 votes, 62.8%, reelected over Megan Wingfield (D), 81,112 votes, 35.1%.

District 3: Morgan McGarvey (D, incumbent), 174,781 votes, 70.3%, reelected over Maria Rodriguez (R), 73,719 votes, 29.7%.

District 4: Ed Gallrein (R), 137,623 votes, 54.2%, elected over Melissa Strange (D), 103,713 votes, 40.9%. The previous incumbent, Thomas Massie, lost the Republican primary to Gallrein — a Republican hold with a new member.

District 5: Hal Rogers (R, incumbent), 139,808 votes, 73.7%, reelected over Ned Pillersdorf (D), 49,805 votes, 26.3%. Rogers has held the seat since 1981, is the House's longest-serving current member, and will begin his 24th term.

District 6: Zach Dembo (D), 138,777 votes, 52.7%, defeated Ralph Alvarado (R), 114,030 votes, 43.3% — a flip of the open seat vacated by Andy Barr's Senate run. Dembo is the first Democrat in more than a decade to represent Kentucky's 6th District.

Chinese American / Asian American winners: none among the six House winners or the Senate winner.

State Legislature

State Senate: half of the 38 seats were up. Republicans kept control and their supermajority, at a projected 30 seats to the Democrats' 8; Democrats gained two seats from their pre-election six, and control did not flip.

State House: all 100 seats were up. Republicans kept control and their supermajority, at a projected 74 seats to the Democrats' 26; Democrats gained six seats from their pre-election 20, and control did not flip.

Both chambers' figures are unofficial projections as of the morning of November 4, when a few seats were still undecided; they are subject to revision at certification.

Counting and Certification

All figures are from the Kentucky State Board of Elections' official count and AP calls as of the morning of November 4, with about 99% of votes counted in the Senate race. About 1.44 million ballots were cast statewide, a turnout of 42.6%, above the 41.8% of the 2022 midterms. The legislature's final seat counts await certification. All results are unofficial until state certification. GSM will update this list after certification.

Related: 2026 midterm results: all 50 states

Source: Kentucky State Board of Elections

Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 图片来源：肯塔基州议会大厦北立面（Frankfort），Tedd Liggett 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0（Wikimedia Commons）

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