Narrow KY statehouse wins stand with ‘no changes’ to primary races recanvassed
Two tight results from this month’s primary elections will hold, according to recanvasses performed Thursday by Secretary of State Michael Adams’ office.
The result: no changes to either final result.
Recanvasses are often confused with recounts, which are comparatively more intensive.
Recanvassing is a process of checking vote tabulations with county clerks working to ensure the numbers sent to the State Board of Elections on Election Night are correct. Recounting involves the examination of each ballot.
Senate District 7 Republican primary winner Aaron Reed and House District 36 Democratic primary winner Woody Zorn will move onto the general election, barring any changes should a recount be performed.
Reed won his party’s nomination by more than 100 votes over Ed Gallrein, who requested the recanvass.
Both of the top two finishers placed well above incumbent Sen. Adrienne Southworth, R-Lawrenceburg, who often sparred with Senate leadership and saw her district almost completely reshaped in 2022.
Both Reed and Zorn face competition from the opposing party.
Reed’s district — a map that includes parts of far Eastern Jefferson County along with Shelby, Henry and Anderson counties — is deep red. It elected former GOP president Donald Trump by more than 30 points in 2020.
Still, Reed will face a Democrat in November in Lawrenceburg’s Rhonda Davis.
Reed is a former Navy SEAL who founded a gun store in Shelby County.
House District 36, currently occupied by Rep. John Hodgson, R-Fisherville, includes much of far Eastern Jefferson County as well as a small portion of Oldham County. It still leans right, but by comparison it’s more politically purple.
While Trump won there in 2020 by around 12 percentage points, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear won it by a little more than 8 points in 2023.
Colin McDowell, who lost to Zorn by five votes (1,019 to 1,014) in the House District 36 Democratic primary, asked for the primary night math to be checked again.
Zorn is an educator in Bullitt County who was recently named the state’s top speech and debate instructor.
Hodgson, a former official in ex-governor Matt Bevin’s cabinet, won the seat after winning a crowded primary and running unopposed in the 2022 general election.
Hodgson made headlines this year sponsoring a bill that open records advocates said would have provided public officials with a “massive loophole” to avoid public records requests.
The bill did not make it through the Senate.
