Kentucky Republican Lost His Seat-- By One Vote

Johnson (R) and Glenn (D)

Owensboro, the 4th largest city in Kentucky, is the county seat of Daviess County. Ownesboro and Bowling Green are the two main population centers of KY-02, Brett Guthrie’s congressional district, a safe red district that went 67.5% to 27.6% for Trump in 2016. Daviess County was slightly less red— Hillary actually going all the way to 31%. In the presidential primary, Daviess was Bernie Country. Aside from beating Hillary, Bernie’s 5,188 votes was considerably more than Trump’s 1,191.

On November 6, there was no blue wave in KY-02. Republican incumbent Brett Guthrie beat Democratic challenger Hank Linderman two to one— 160,888 (66.3%) to 76,220 (31.4%.). Kentucky House District 13, though… well, it’s basically almost all of Owensboro and there was enough of a wave for Democrat Jim Glenn to oust Republican incumbent D.J. Johnson. How much of a wave? One vote. CBS News told the story very viscerally:

Mary Beverly Goetz is 76, uses a walker and recently had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. Worried her health issues would prevent her from voting for Democrat Jim Glenn in her western Kentucky state House district, she requested an absentee ballot by mail and sent it in weeks ahead of the election to make sure her vote was counted.

Glenn won by one vote.

"It made me feel good," Goetz said. "It made you feel like your vote really counted."

As the nation watches election officials in Florida and Georgia painstakingly review results in high-profile Senate and governor's races, many less prominent races across the country were decided by agonizingly close margins.

Johnson is demanding a recount. Glenn was one of three Democrats to win state House seats with less than a 10 vote margin. In District 96, Democrat Kathy Hinkle beat Republican Jill York by five votes and in District 91, Democrat Cluster Howard beat Republican Toby Herald by seven votes. You know the moral of this little story, right?