Political science expert breaks down Tuesday’s election results

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Election Day, Tuesday, brought both a large and small scale blue wave, along with some very close local races here in south-central Kentucky.

On a national scale, the republican lead house has lost at least 29 seats with 64 seats still yet to be officially confirmed.

The United States Senate Democratic Party has gained seven seats, while two have not yet been officially called. 

A Western Kentucky University professor of political science says a swing toward the opposing party of the president is extremely common for midterm elections, but this shift does seem to be larger than predicted.

“Why did we see such a big swing? And I think it’s just hard to explain it any other way than to say that voters continue to express that they are very upset with the status quo. When you are upset with how things are going, you tend to blame the party in power. The Republicans are the party in power and they blame them for that,” said Dr. Jeffrey Budziak, the associate dean of Potter College of Arts and Letters and a professor of political science.

But Budziak says President Donald Trump has been the singular dominant force for the Republican Party for 10 years, and after the swing, what will the parties focus on from here?

“Where does the Republican Party go from here? In these elections, this is really crystallized, I think, a vision for Democrats where, you know, two years ago it was a little unclear to some people like what was the future of the Democratic Party like? Were they just kind of anti-Trump? Do they have a message to run on? Last night, you really saw Democrats win in places they almost never win,” said Budziak.

On a more local level, we saw a swing toward blue in the Bowling Green city commissioner’s race, where Sue Parrigin was not re-elected and Tom Morris will replace her. 

“Data centers are just incredibly politically unpopular. Sue Parrigin and Melinda Hill were more skeptical of banning or slowing down the potential for data center production. The two Democrats, Carlos Bailey and Dana Beasley-Brown, were more for [a moratorium]. Tom Morris campaigned very strongly in favor of a data center moratorium. I think that clearly had an effect in the race where this is the public saying, like, we are not excited about data centers,” said Budziak.

Other surprising races include the mayoral race for Horse Cave, which has a one vote difference between the two candidates, and the Hart County judge-executive election, where the democratic candidate, Joe Choate, won by only 11 votes. 

Asa Waggoner has conceded and will not be asking for a recount.

“The odds that like my singular vote would change the outcome of the Kentucky Senate race or the city commission race or whatever is pretty small. But if everyone like me took that position, then there’s really a chance that the type of things that I care about are not going to be represented in the government,” said Budziak.

This leads Kentuckians to wonder, will the democratic wave continue? How will this election affect the gubernatorial race coming up next year?

“Most political commentators prior to last night thought that, you know, Kentucky is such a traditionally Republican state, it’s going to be an uphill climb for whoever is the Democrat to win that race. But what seemed might have been impossible all of a sudden seems like maybe in play. And that may really change the way we look at Kentucky politics over the next year,” said Budziak.