Remnants of poison ivy picked up campaigning door to door covered the back of Kentucky 68th House District Democrat candidate Brandon Long’s arm as he stopped to talk with LINK nky last week. The 37-year-old father and educator was in the middle of yet another busy day on the trail that included stops in urban and rural Campbell County.
Lately, he’s spent a lot of time in the southern part of the county, where Long said Democrat sightings are rare.
“I’m everywhere because that’s where I have to be,” he told LINK.
If elected this November, Long would be the first Democrat in more than 30 years to win the state legislative seat now held by first-term lawmaker and Long’s opponent, Rep. Mike Clines, R-Alexandria. No Democrat has held the seat since former Northern Kentucky state Rep. Bill Donnermeyer was elected to serve the 68th from 1970 through 1994.
District lines have been redrawn by the Kentucky General Assembly at least three times since then. Voter registration in the district is now 53% registered Republican to 33% registered Democrat (with the remainder registered as independent or aligned with other parties) based on June state voter registration statistics.
It’s a familiar story in NKY, a region with established Republican strongholds that has turned increasingly red over the past two decades. That has kept Democrats in some NKY districts at bay in past election years, but this year is different – Democrats are running against every NKY Republican on the 2024 state legislative ballot with the exception of Senate District 11 in Boone County, House District 63 in part of Kenton and Boone counties, and House District 61 encompassing part of Kenton and Boone counties and all of Grant and Gallatin counties.
Long – a Fort Thomas resident and director of education at Trinity Episcopal in Covington – believes he has a shot at winning the 68th district despite voter registration numbers. Voters tell him they are concerned with Amendment 2 (the school funding ballot measure), policies affecting all children, a lack of economic development investment countywide, zoning issues and more. Just showing up and listening to voters, he said, has been critical to his campaign.
Often called the “school choice amendment,” Amendment 2, if approved by voters, would allow state lawmakers to provide public funding for K-12 education outside of public schools or the “common schools” system. Right now, all seven states surrounding Kentucky — and dozens more — have private school choice programs (with some degree of public funding), while Kentucky does not.
If it passes, Amendment 2 would change the state constitution to read like this:
“The General Assembly may provide financial support for the education of students outside the system of common schools.”
Nowhere in that wording is there any mention of charter schools. Instead, the amendment is written broadly to give state lawmakers considerable leeway in how public funding is used, either for non-public schools or public charters – typically defined as public schools run outside of the state school system. Funding for charter schools is a potential option. Other potential options are publicly-funded vouchers for private school tuition, tax credits for private school tuition donors and more.
Voters will see this question when they go to cast their ballot for or against Amendment 2:
“To give parents choices in educational opportunities for their children, are you in favor of enabling the General Assembly to provide financial support for the education costs of students in kindergarten through 12th grade who are outside the system of common (public) schools by amending the Constitution of Kentucky as stated below?” followed by the amendment language.
A yes vote would allow state lawmakers to pass legislation providing public funding for non-public schools, while a no vote would prevent it.
What is Amendment 2, and what would it do?
“Being a Democrat in Kentucky, in general, is getting out of an inferiority complex and showing up. I’ve talked to several Democratic candidates past and present. There’s the Hillary Clinton strategy of 2016, which is to focus on your strong locations and put all your attention there or, what I prefer, the Howard Dean approach, which is to show up everywhere,” he said.
In bluer Newport, House Minority Whip Rachel Roberts has spent this year putting the finishing touches on her last term as state representative for the 67th House District – the only state legislative district in NKY held by a Democrat. Vying to replace her are Newport Democrat Matt Lehman and Republican Terry Hatton of Bellevue.
The district has been represented by a Democrat for decades. However, Roberts, first elected to the seat in 2020, said candidates can’t rely on the past for a win. As with the state’s 99 other House districts and 38 Senate districts, lines for the 67th seat were redrawn in 2022. That could make it harder for a Democrat to win this year, Roberts told LINK.
“This district was never easy for me to win,” Roberts said. “It will be harder (this year) because the district was redrawn two years ago.”
Winning as a Democrat in NKY, she said, requires candidates to do what Long said he is doing: showing up to every event a candidate can fit into their schedule. Voters expect to see candidates and talk to candidates, she said. Roberts made sure she, like Long, “was everywhere.”
“Whether that was block parties or Rotary Club meetings, anything, and showing my face places where people wouldn’t necessarily expect a Democrat to show up,” she told LINK. “I think in our area, people don’t want a representative that’s just down in Frankfort. They want to be able to see them on the street.”
Over in Boone County, Democrat Deb Ison Flowers is campaigning for election to the 60th House District—one of the most reliably Republican state legislative districts in NKY. No Democrat has held the seat since former Rep. Kenny French was elected in 1993. He was succeeded by the late Republican Paul Marcotte in 1994.
The seat hasn’t left Republican hands since.
Flowers, a registered nurse, is running against incumbent Rep. Marianne Proctor of Union, a speech pathologist who ran unopposed in the 2022 general election. Speaking with LINK on the phone from her home in Union as her grandchild played in the background, Flowers said voters in the 60th seem excited that there’s a general election race this year.
“As far as Boone County goes itself, I think that people are very excited that there is a Democrat running because there wasn’t a Democrat running against my opponent in the last election. So just to have another option and to be able to say we are going to actually participate in the race this time, they are very excited about that,” she said. “I’m also hearing things like it’s going to be a tough battle. However, I have had a lot of people say to me, ‘I’m a Republican, and I support you, and I want you to serve us proudly and well.”
Voters of all stripes in the district, she said, are concerned about reproductive rights in Kentucky, which currently has a near-total abortion ban with no exceptions for rape and incest.
“I think it has really solidified the resolve of women and those who love those women to say we’re going to get out and vote,” she told LINK.
The 2024 general election vote on Nov. 5 will ultimately tell whether or not there will be a change in party representation in the 60th, 68th or other current Republican districts in NKY. Roberts said some NKY Democrats may have a harder race than others based on factors like voter registration numbers.
“Math is math, and math is really hard to overcome. But anything can happen in a race, so we always tell people to run like anything can change on a dime and they can win it,” Roberts told LINK.
Flowers chatted recently with a cashier at her local grocery about her campaign for the 60th district seat. The cashier said she would vote for Flowers, then paused, asking her if she was a Republican.
“I am a registered Democrat, but believe me, I will represent every single person in my district,” Flowers said she told the cashier. “And she said ‘but you’re not a Republican.’ And I still go to her line because I want her to know that I’m just a regular nice person who wants what’s best for her and for everybody else. I’m gonna soften her up.”