Will this Central KY ‘Democratic stronghold’ hold strong? A test in Woodford-based House race
Kyle Fannin has an idea of how a political scientist might look at the state of the Woodford County Democratic Party.
“They would say ‘okay, you lost the federal first, then this last election you lost the state level, this is the time that you’re going to start losing at the county level. I know it makes sense to think of it that way because I taught political science for 25 years,” Fannin said.
“I just don’t feel that on the ground.”
A still-organized party and a strong number of cross-ticket voters is what’s got Fannin, who taught at Woodford County High School before taking over the local nonprofit Spark Cafe, excited about Democrats’ future there – and that could bode well for the county’s House District 56.
Though the last time the county voted for the Democratic nominee for President was Jimmy Carter’s 1980 election, it has delivered reliably good outcomes for Democrats at the local and state level since time immemorial. That changed when the county helped elect hometown Rep. Dan Fister, R-Versailles, in 2020 to House District 56.
Now the county of Happy Chandler has a chance to prove that it still is a Democratic haven, and many Woodford County Democrats like Fannin think it will do just that. With contested county races, a popular Democratic mayor taking on Fister for the House seat, and a leading voice among state Democrats fighting for reelection as judge-executive, will that projection for the once-impenetrable Democratic stronghold prove fact or fantasy?
For Nick Nash, vice chair of the Woodford County Republican Party and staffer for GOP Commissioner of Agriculture Ryan Quarles, the writing is on the wall. A still-nascent local Republican party is fated to catch up with the popularity of the federal GOP in Woodford County, in large part because Republicans there are now fielding candidates for most all elected offices.
“For the first time in decades, there are actual choices to be made on the ballot. This whole ‘one party rule system,’ it’s been cracked,” Nash said. “I think you are going to see competitive races in Woodford County forever now. Republicans had been beaten down to the point where they were scared to even speak up, but now that we have organized and built a robust party, we’ll have candidates running for races from school board to city council to magistrate.”
Nash said that Fister, who was beaten soundly in runs for his office in 2016 and 2018 but found success in 2020 against Lexingtonian Lamar Allen, “cracked the glass ceiling” on the House District 56 seat that was long assumed to be safe for Democrats.
And Nash believes that a second win for Fister is going to further prove that Woodford County is fair game for Republicans up and down the ballot.
Fister’s Democratic opponent Grayson Vandegrift begs to differ.
During a GOP-led redistricting effort, that district’s lines have now been redrawn in the hopes of keeping Republicans safe, according to Vandegrift. He still believes he’s got a shot.
The district used to feature an arm that extended into Lexington. The Lexington portion of the district, which is still centered around Woodford County and includes a similar part of Franklin County, got swapped out for a swath of the much more conservative Jessamine County that includes the city of Wilmore.
And one other factor could play against Vandegrift: the recent surfacing of a 14 year-old Facebook post of him bashing Hillary Clinton using highly sexist language.
But Vandegrift is well-liked in Midway, where he is mayor, and the town is thriving. He’s also got an energetic door-knocking operation, from Midway, up to the northern reaches of Franklin County and down to Wilmore.
“I think he’ll win Woodford County. I don’t think there’s a doubt about that,” Fannin said. “But will he win it big enough to overcome the loss he’ll take in Jessamine?”
That’s the question for Woodford County Democrats in this race – can they prove that they’re one of the few Democratic strongholds outside of Lexington or Louisville that can still send Democrats to Frankfort? And will their support be enough to overcome the obstacles Vandegrift faces in a less hospitable district and a negative story about an offensive post he made on social media?
Sizing them up
A small group of neighbors, with a smattering of local elected officials past and present in attendance, filled a downtown Versailles home for a more intimate meet and greet with Vandegrift in early October. The event was purposefully small, and citizens milled about catching up, nibbling on charcuterie and listening to smooth jazz before hearing speeches from the host, former House District 56 representative Joe Graviss and Vandegrift himself.
The pitch to these 20-plus voters – who, ostensibly, were already inclined to support Vandegrift – was that their actively convincing their respective networks in Woodford County to back him could make the difference.
John-Mark Hack, a former cabinet official in the Paul Patton administration, was the host. He said that he’s convinced Vandegrift’s tenure as mayor of Midway makes him a more qualified candidate, and that many voters regardless of partisan lean will recognize that.
“I’m pretty convinced that most of the noise, the division that we see presented on a daily basis, is coming from a very small percentage of the electorate on either side. The other 80 percent of us just want good government regardless of whether they’re Republican or Democrat. And I think Grayson’s commitment to that is pretty clear,” Hack said. “We can do better than what we’ve seen.”
Vandegrift hammered Fister for his backing of a bills that ended up funding charter schools, a bill that would have given a tax break to private jet owners and the litany of anti-abortion legislation that’s been passed by the General Assembly.
Fister is unabashedly anti-abortion. He’s been on the board of directors of Kentucky Right to Life, has been involved in the pro-life cause since his teens, and a draft of House Bill 91, the bill introducing this year’s anti-abortion constitutional amendment, hangs on the wall in his office.
One of Vandegrift’s main lines of attack, as evidenced by a mailer highlighting Fister’s vote against an amendment that would have allowed for exceptions in cases to rape or incest in the legislature’s primary anti-abortion bill this past session, is that Fister’s position on abortion is too extreme for the district. It might help to share the ballot with the proposed anti-abortion constitutional amendment, Vandegrift added.
Fister did not agree to be interviewed for this story. But Nash wholeheartedly defended Fister’s time in the legislature. And he said that bread and butter issues for conservatives – which voters across the country say they care about more than abortion – will win the day in the district.
“The people of the 56th district are pragmatic. They want lower taxes, less crime, safe schools. That’s what the Republicans are pushing,” Nash said, praising Fister’s support of the bill that aims to eliminate Kentucky’s personal income tax.
He added that Fister is “humble,” and that while he passed only a few low profile bills during his first two sessions, that he’s “just getting” started and has already made a name for himself among Frankfort Republicans who rule the roost when it comes to policy making.
“There are going to be a lot more (bills Fister passes). Now that he’s got the footing, the sky’s the limit because he’s in the majority. And I don’t care how pragmatic Grayson is, he’s not going to be able to pass legislation. Plain and simple: the House is run by Republicans,” Nash said.
Though no mailers have been delivered to homes on Vandegrift’s Facebook post, the attack could come at some expense to Vandegrift. But University of Kentucky Political Science Professor Stephen Voss said that it’s unclear if the story will matter much.
“This race is so low-attention that you have to wonder how many voters really even learned about this. The Twitter and Facebook crowd has probably learned about it, but their votes generally aren’t as flexible,” Voss said.
Graviss took issue with Nash’s “seat at the table” framing, a tactic that Republicans are using to try and convince voters in swing districts to side with them.
“For anyone to puff up their chest and say ‘Woodford County is going to lose their seat at the table if we don’t get Fister back in’ is just flat wrong. He’s barely in the room,” Graviss said. “The leadership of the Republican Party is smart. Dan Fister is not smart.”
Vandegrift made a similar pitch to the crowd, though less direct of an offense to Fister. He asked them to watch their interviews with the Frankfort Plant Board and compare the candidates’ facility with the issues.
Graviss said that, based on his time in the House, he thought the GOP apparatus’ support – they pitched in $20,000 for his reelection bid – was just to “protect a vote” in the GOP’s large caucus. Though their 75-member majority dwarfs the Democrats’ 25, some pieces of legislation among certain factions of the GOP such as the charter school funding bill still need a comfortable cushion of loyal Republicans like Fister to make it through.
What does the future hold?
Even the most Pollyanna of Democrats would admit that Vandegrift won’t win the Jessamine County portion of the new district. It’s deep red territory. Vandegrift spoke plainly and called it an instance of gerrymandering, with Republicans switching out Lexington for more hospitable voters.
Wilmore Mayor Harold Rainwater, who has endorsed Fister though he added he didn’t know him well, guessed that the community is about conservative-progressive split is about 70-30. Rainwater said that the local christian postsecondary institution Asbury University, particularly those involved in the seminary who are more regular voters than the undergraduates, and that community’s seniors are big factors in the area’s conservatism.
Fannin said that there’s hope that the portion of Franklin County – much of which is rural but at least registered Democrat – could swing for Vandegrift, but that Woodford County still needs to be where Vandegrift kills it if he’s going to win.
Some potential positives: Democrats are running in important seats long-held by Democrats in the often high turnout countywide races like sheriff and judge-executive in Woodford and Franklin counties; meanwhile, Jessamine County Republicans hold every single local election office above constable, and not a single Democrat is challenging a Republican there.
Fannin projected major wins for Woodford County Judge-Executive James Kay, who’s got the strong backing of Gov. Andy Beshear, and Woodford County Sheriff Johnny Wilhoit – those could help Vandegrift make up the difference in Jessamine, he said.
In 2016 and 2020, the numbers aren’t great for Democrats looking for reasons to hope about the district. Trump beat Biden there by about 3,400 votes or 26 percentage points according to Blue Arrow Maps. But Vandegrift said that he added up results from the three 2018 House races, a midterm year such as this one, taking place in the new district and the Democratic candidates took it by a collective 800 votes.
Voss said that there are signs deep within the political trend data that Democrats across Kentucky, and in particular this race, might take to heart. Though the state has been trending red, that pace has slowed from 2016 to 2020. Woodford County, he said, is one of the ten counties in the state that has moved the least Republican over time.
He also shared a projection showing that the district, excluding incumbency advantage, had a 40% chance to be won by a Democrat.
That could be a tea leaf for the county’s future – whether it will remain loyal to a Democratic party still dwindling in the state or if it will become more reliably red like most of the counties surrounding Fayette.
“We’ve had the red wave, but now we might be in the blue undertow in some of these places,” Voss said.
This story was originally published October 28, 2022 at 11:19 AM.
