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2018→ ←2014
2016 Kentucky Senate Elections
Primary	May 17, 2016
General	November 8, 2016

A total of19 seats out of the 38 seats in theKentucky State Senate were up for election in 2016. No changes occurred to political control in the Kentucky State Senate after theNovember 2016 election.

Introduction

The Kentucky state Senate was one of the least competitive elections in the country—the Republican Party has held the majority for 16 years.

Elections for theKentucky State Senate took place in 2016. The primary election took place on May 17, 2016, and the general election was held on November 8, 2016. The candidate filing deadline was January 26, 2016.

Majority control

See also:Partisan composition of state senates

Heading into the election, the Republican Party held the majority in the Kentucky State Senate:

Retired incumbents

Two incumbent senators did not run for re-election in 2016. Those incumbents were:

Name	Party	Current Office
Carroll Gibson	Republican	Senate District 5
Chris Girdler	Republican	Senate District 15

2016 election competitiveness

Kentucky saw improvement in general election competitiveness.

Ballotpedia conducts a yearly study of electoral competitiveness in state legislative elections. Details on how well Kentucky performed in the study are provided in the image below.Click here for the full 2016 Competitiveness Analysis »

• In theKentucky State Senate, there were 11 Democratic incumbents and 27 Republican incumbents. Two incumbents faced primary challengers in the Democratic Party. Two primary challenges took place in the Republican primary.

• In theHouse, there were 53 Democratic incumbents and 47 Republican incumbents. Six state representatives faced primary opposition in the Democratic Party. There were eight primary challenges that took place in the Republican primary.

• Overall, 18.6 percent of Democratic incumbents and 21.4 percent of GOP incumbents faced primary opposition in all of the state legislatures with elections in 2016.

• The cumulative figure for how many state legislative candidates faced no major party opposition in November in these states was 41.8 percent. This compares to 32.7 percent in 2010, 38.3 percent in 2012, and 43.0 percent in 2014.

• More details on electoral competitiveness in Kentucky can be foundbelow.

Races we watched

Ballotpedia identified four notable Kentucky state primary races in 2016, one of which was a state Senate contest.

Click here to read more about Ballotpedia's coverage of notable Kentucky races »

Primary contests

State Senate District 15 (R)

Four conservative candidates competed for an open seat left by the Republican incumbent.

☑Rick Girdler      ☐Michael Keck      ☐Don Moss      ☐Joshua Nichols

List of candidates

General election

2016 Kentucky Senate candidates
District	Democrat	Republican	Other
1		Stan Humphries: 36,264(I)a
3		Whitney Westerfield: 28,655(I)a
5	Leslie Stith: 18,006	Stephen Meredith: 31,096a
7	Julian Carroll: 39,851(I)a
9		David Givens: 37,791(I)a
11		John Schickel: 47,552(I)a
13	Reggie Thomas: 33,373(I)a
15		Rick Girdler: 39,614a
17	Charlie Hoffman: 17,302	Damon Thayer: 36,656(I)a
19	Morgan McGarvey: 39,026(I)a	Larry West: 24,214
21	Janice Odom: 11,185	Albert Robinson: 33,770(I)a
23		Chris McDaniel: 37,409(I)a
25		Robert Stivers: 30,577(I)a
27	Charles L. Linville III: 14,681	Steve West: 30,548(I)a
29	Johnny Ray Turner: 26,890(I)a
31	Ray Jones: 26,598(I)a
33	Gerald Neal: 34,588(I)a	Shenita Rickman: 6,432
35	Denise Angel: 35,860(I)a
37	Perry Clark: 31,555(I)a
Notes: An(I) denotes an incumbent. Candidate lists can change frequently throughout an election season. Ballotpedia staff update this list monthly. To suggest changes, click here to email ourState Legislature Project.

Primary election

2016 Kentucky Senate candidates
District	Democrat	Republican	Other
1		Stan Humphries(I)a
3		Whitney Westerfield(I)a
5	Leslie Stith: 5,470a Ricky Alvey: 4,990	Stephen Mereditha
7	Julian Carroll(I)a
9		David Givens(I)a
11		John Schickel: 4,804(I)a Josh L. Turner: 1,137
13	Reggie Thomas(I)a
15		Rick Girdler: 3,395a Michael Keck: 2,449 Don Moss: 2,638 Joshua Nichols: 2,214
17	Charlie Hoffmana	Damon Thayer(I)a
19	Morgan McGarvey(I)a	Larry Westa
21	Janice Odoma	Albert Robinson: 5,005(I)a Michael Bryant: 4,034
23		Chris McDaniel(I)a
25		Robert Stivers(I)a
27	Charles L. Linville IIIa	Steve West(I)a
29	Johnny Ray Turner(I)a
31	Glenn Martin Hammond: 3,870 Ray Jones: 9,527(I)a
33	Gerald Neal: 9,013(I)a Charles Booker: 3,681 Toni Stringer: 5,945	Shenita Rickman: 537a John Yuen: 499
35	Denise Angel(I)a
37	Perry Clark(I)a
Notes: An(I) denotes an incumbent. Candidate lists can change frequently throughout an election season. Ballotpedia staff update this list monthly. To suggest changes, click here to email ourState Legislature Project.

Margins of victory

The average margin of victory for contested races in the Kentucky State Senate in 2016 was higher than the national average. Out of 19 races in the Kentucky State Senate in 2016, six were contested, meaning at least two candidates competed for that seat in the general election. The average margin of victory across these races was 40 percent. Across contested single-winner state legislative elections in 2016, the average margin of victory was 29.01 percent.^[2]

Kentucky State Senate: 2016 Margin of Victory Analysis
Party	Elections won	Average margin of victory[3]	Races with incumbent victories	Average margin of victory for incumbents[3]	Unopposed incumbents	Unopposed races	Percent unopposed
Democratic	8	46.0 percent	8	46.0 percent	6	6	75.0 percent
Republican	11	37.0 percent	9	40.4 percent	6	7	63.6 percent
Total	19	40.0 percent	17	42.7 percent	12	13	68.4 percent

Click[show] on the tables below to see the margin of victory in Kentucky State Senate districts in 2016.

Important dates and deadlines

See also:Kentucky elections, 2016

The calendar below lists important dates for political candidates in Kentucky in 2016.

Competitiveness

In 13 of the 19 districts up for election in 2016, there was only one major party candidate running for election. A total of six Democrats and seven Republicans were guaranteed election barring unforeseen circumstances.

Two major party candidates faced off in the general election in six (31.5%) of the 19 districts up for election. Two of those districts were Democratic-controlled while the other four seats were held by Republicans.

Primary challenges

Four incumbents, two Democrats and two Republicans, faced primary competition on May 17. Two incumbents did not seek re-election and another 13 incumbents advanced past the primary without opposition.

Retired incumbents

Two incumbent senators did not run for re-election, while 17 ran for re-election. A list of those incumbents, two Republicans, can be foundabove.

Results from 2014

See also:2014 state legislative elections analyzed using a Competitiveness Index

There were 6,057 seats in 87 chambers with elections in 2014. All three aspects of Ballotpedia'sCompetitiveness Index—the number ofopen seats,incumbents facing primary opposition, andgeneral elections between partisan candidates—showed poor results compared to the prior election cycle. States with elections in 2014 held fewer general elections between partisan candidates. Additionally, fewer incumbents faced primary opposition and more incumbents ran for re-election than inrecent years.

Since 2010, when the Competitiveness Index was established, there had not been an even-year election cycle to do statistically worse in any of the three categories. See the following chart for a breakdown of those scores between each year.

The following table details Kentucky's rates foropen seats, incumbents that facedprimary challenges, andmajor party competition in the 2014 general election.

Historical context

See also:Competitiveness in State Legislative Elections: 1972-2014

Uncontested elections: In 2014, 32.8 percent of Americans lived in states with an uncontested state senate election. Similarly, 40.4 percent of Americans lived in states with uncontested house elections. Primary elections were uncontested even more frequently, with 61 percent of people living in states with no contested primaries. Uncontested elections often occur in locations that are so politically one-sided that the result of an election would be a foregone conclusion regardless of whether it was contested or not.

Open seats: In most cases, an incumbent will run for re-election, which decreases the number of open seats available. In 2014, 83 percent of the 6,057 seats up for election saw the incumbent running for re-election. The states that impose term limits on their legislatures typically see a higher percentage of open seats in a given year because a portion of incumbents in each election are forced to leave office. Overall, the number of open seats decreased from 2012 to 2014, dropping from 21.2 percent in 2012 to 17.0 percent in 2014.

Incumbent win rates: Ballotpedia'scompetitiveness analysis of elections between 1972 and 2014 documented the high propensity for incumbents to win re-election in state legislative elections. In fact, since 1972, the win rate for incumbents had not dropped below 90 percent—with the exception of 1974, when 88 percent of incumbents were re-elected to their seats. Perhaps most importantly, the win rate for incumbents generally increased over time. In 2014, 96.5 percent of incumbents were able to retain their seats. Common convention holds that incumbents are able to leverage their office to maintain their seat. However, the high incumbent win rate may actually be a result of incumbents being more likely to hold seats in districts that are considered safe for their party.

Marginal primaries: Often, competitiveness is measured by examining the rate of elections that have been won by amounts that are considered marginal (5 percent or less). During the 2014 election, 90.1 percent of primary and general election races were won by margins higher than 5 percent. Interestingly, it is usually the case that only one of the two races—primary or general—will be competitive at a time. This means that if a district's general election is competitive, typically one or more of the district's primaries were won by more than 5 percent. The reverse is also true: If a district sees a competitive primary, it is unlikely that the general election for that district will be won by less than 5 percent. Primaries often see very low voter turnout in comparison to general elections. In 2014, there were only 27 million voters for state legislative primaries, but approximately 107 million voters for the state legislative general elections.

Campaign contributions

The following chart shows how many candidates ran for State Senate in Kentucky in past years and the cumulative amount of campaign contributions in State Senate races, including contributions in both primary and general election contests.^[4]

State comparison

The map below shows the average contributions to 2014 candidates for state senates. The average contributions raised by state senate candidates in 2014 was $148,144. Kentucky, at $101,078 per candidate, is ranked 20 of 42 for state senate chambers with the highest average contributions. Hover your mouse over a state to see the average campaign contributions for that state’s senate candidates in 2014.^[4][5]

Qualifications

To be eligible to serve in the Kentucky State Senate, a candidate must be:^[6]

• At least 30 years of age at the time of the election
• A citizen of Kentucky
• A resident of the state 6 years preceding the election
• A resident of the district for the last year

See also

• Kentucky State Senate
• Kentucky State Legislature
• State legislative elections, 2016

External links

Suggest a link

• Candidate filings

Footnotes

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