- Republican challenger Cole Cuzick defeated incumbent Rep. Kim Banta by 13 votes in the Kentucky House District 63 GOP primary.
- The race’s 0.03% margin falls within the threshold for a potential recount request under Kentucky law.
- Banta told LINK nky she will not pursue a recount, saying she does not want to “waste the taxpayers’ money.”
The Kentucky House District 63 GOP primary could undergo a recount, if requested, as the race’s final margin is within .05%.
After the final votes were tallied on Election Day, challenger Cole Cuzick held a 13-vote lead over incumbent State Rep. Kim Banta, 2,220 to 2,207. Third-place challenger Seth Winslow Young captured 435 votes.
Due to the margin, a recount could potentially be requested under KRS 120.095, which allows a candidate in a Kentucky primary election to request a recount by filing a petition within 10 days after the race concludes.
This differs from KRS 120.157, which requires a recount in specific general and special elections when the margin is “not more than one-half of one percent,” or 0.5%. The automatic recount law applies to races for the Kentucky General Assembly, U.S House, U.S. Senate, governor and lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, auditor and agriculture commissioner.
For context, an automatic recount was initiated after the 2024 Kentucky House District 67 election between Democrat Matt Lehman and Republican Terry Hatton. At the conclusion of the election, Lehman won 9,435 to 9,405. The subsequent recount confirmed the 30-vote margin.
The key distinction is that recounts are automatically triggered for general and special elections of certain offices. For primaries, recounts are not automatic and must be initiated by submitting a petition within the mandated timeframe.
Banta, however, confirmed LINK nky she would not seek a recount.
“I have not heard anything different,” Banta said. “I am not asking for it. I don’t want to waste the taxpayers’ money.”
If Banta did hypothetically want to pursue a recount, she would have until Tuesday, May 26, at 4 p.m. The Kentucky Secretary of State’s Office confirmed this in an official statement to LINK nky.
“If requested by the statutory deadline of 4:00 p.m. next Tuesday, our Office will conduct a recanvass,” read the statement. “Any requested recount beyond that would have to be conducted pursuant to court order.”
Cole Cuzick, the Republican nominee for House District 63, said he was confident in the final vote count. He subsequently thanked his opponent for her service in office.
“They usually don’t have a ton of votes flipped, or any at all, so if that’s something that she wanted to do, that’s her right, but I’m so confident that even if it did happen, even though it doesn’t sound like it would, that it probably wouldn’t change the race,” he said.
