Kentucky
Political parties
A rift was created in Kentucky politics by the presidential election of 1824, which had to be determined in the US House of Representatives because neither John Quincy Adams nor Andrew Jackson won a majority of the Electoral College. Representative Henry Clay voted for Adams, despite orders by the Kentucky general assembly to support Jackson, thereby splitting the state into two factions: supporters of Clay, who became Whigs, and supporters of Jackson, who became Democrats. The Whigs dominated Kentucky politics until Clay's death in 1852, after which, as the Whigs divided over slavery, most Kentuckians turned first to the Native American (or Know-Nothing) Party and then to the Democrats. Regional divisions in party affiliation during the Civil War era, according to sympathy with the South and slavery (Democrats) or with the Union and abolition (Republicans), have persisted in the state's voting patterns. In general, the poorer mountain areas tend to vote Republican,
Kentucky Presidential Vote by Political Parties, 1948–2000
| YEAR | ELECTORAL VOTE | KENTUCKY WINNER | DEMOCRAT | REPUBLICAN | STATES' RIGHTS DEMOCRAT | PROHIBITION | PROGRESSIVE | SOCIALIST |
| *Won US presidential election. | ||||||||
| 1948 | 11 | *Truman (D) | 466,756 | 341,210 | 10,411 | 1,245 | 1,567 | 1,284 |
| 1952 | 10 | Stevenson (D) | 495,729 | 495,029 | — | 1,161 | — | — |
| 1956 | 10 | *Eisenhower (R) | 476,453 | 572,192 | — | 2,145 | — | — |
| 1960 | 10 | Nixon (R) | 521,855 | 602,607 | — | — | — | — |
| STATES' RIGHTS | ||||||||
| 1964 | 9 | *Johnson (D) | 669,659 | 372,977 | 3,469 | — | — | — |
| AMERICAN IND. | SOC. WORKERS | |||||||
| 1968 | 9 | *Nixon (R) | 397,541 | 462,411 | 193,098 | — | — | 2,843 |
| AMERICAN | PEOPLE'S | |||||||
| 1972 | 9 | *Nixon (R) | 371,159 | 676,446 | — | 17,627 | 1,118 | — |
| 1976 | 9 | *Carter (D) | 615,717 | 531,852 | 2,328 | 8,308 | — | — |
| LIBERTARIAN | CITIZENS | |||||||
| 1980 | 9 | *Reagan (R) | 617,417 | 635,274 | — | — | 5,531 | 1,304 |
| 1984 | 9 | *Reagan (R) | 539,539 | 821,702 | — | — | 1,776 | 599 |
| 1988 | 9 | *Bush (R) | 580,368 | 734,281 | 4,994 | 1,256 | 2,118 | — |
| IND. (Perot) | ||||||||
| 1992 | 8 | *Clinton (D) | 665,104 | 617,178 | 203,944 | 430 | 4,513 | 989 |
| 1996 | 8 | *Clinton (D) | 636,614 | 623,283 | 120,396 | — | 4,009 | — |
| REFORM | GREEN | |||||||
| 2000 | 8 | *Bush, G. W. (R) | 638,898 | 872,492 | 4,173 | 2,896 | 23,192 | |
while the more affluent lowlanders in the Bluegrass and Pennyroyal tend to vote Democratic.
Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush won the state by a large margin in 2000—57% to Democrat Al Gore's 41%. Green Party candidate Ralph Nader won 2% of the vote. In 2002 there were 2,649,084 registered voters. In 1998, 61% of registered voters were Democratic, 32% Republican, and 7% unaffiliated or members of other parties. The state had eight electoral votes in the 2000 presidential election.
In 1983, Martha Layne Collins, a Democrat, defeated Republican candidate Jim Bunning to become Kentucky's first woman governor. Democrat Paul E. Patton was elected governor in 1995 and reelected in 1999. Before the November 2003 elections, Republicans held 22 seats in the state senate, Republicans 16; the Democrats dominated the house of representatives, with 65 seats to the Republicans' 35. At the national level, Kentucky was represented by Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, reelected in 2002; and first-term Republican Senator Jim Bunning, elected in 1998. Kentucky voters elected five Republicans and one Democrat to the US House in 2002.