Kentucky early counts point to a sharp Democratic shift

KY-06 was flagged here as an early district worth watching as a gauge of today's vote, and actual results are now arriving while betting markets shift.

In Anderson County, Alvarado, the Republican, holds a lead of 19 percentage points. That sounds strong, but it isn't: the Republican carried that county by +48, +54 and +54 in the three previous House elections. With 49% of the votes counted, that works out to a swing of roughly 35 points toward the Democratic candidate.

Across the district in Montgomery County, 43% of the vote is in and the pattern looks much the same. Alvarado is ahead by 16 points there, against +53 in the previous election, +54 in 2022 and +43 in 2020.

In Jessamine County, where 27% of votes are counted, Dumbo is ahead by 0.9%, compared with a Republican margin of 46.3% in 2024 — a huge swing. The share counted there is smaller, but the raw number of votes is three times that of the other two counties that have reported.

On this reading, Democrats are heading for a landslide, and prediction markets seem to agree.

There has also been a marked shift in the odds of Democrats winning the Senate, now at 86% against 73% earlier today.

One important caveat applies to Kentucky. According to the Associated Press, nearly every county in the state is expected to include early and absentee ballots in its first update. Those figures are likely to come from early and mail-in voters, who lean Democratic.

Update: What may be the most significant data point so far has arrived. Powell County in KY-06 is 95% counted, and that represents a 28.7 point swing to the Democrats against 2024 and 27 points against 2022. With so high a share counted, a mail-in skew cannot explain it.

Update 2: Counting now stands at 89-92% in Montgomery, Anderson and Bourbon counties. Later votes have produced a swing of 3-5 points back toward the Republicans, but that is still a massive underperformance against 2024. Across those counties, the movement is Dem +32.4, +32.3 and +37.4 points.