526. Thank Goodness for Carter County - and Lewis too. Lewis, really?

I don't claim to know much about Carter County. I've been there a few times. The county seat is Grayson and the main north-south street is KY1/KY7, and KY9 and KY2 aren't too far away to the north, just beyond the intersection with I64. And, Grayson is bigger than you think it is. And there is some connection between the person for whom the city of Grayson is named and that for whom the county of Carter is named. I think both are for William Grayson Carter. Further there is a connection also to the person for whom the county of Grayson is named, William Grayson, who is William Grayson Carter's grandfather. That's honestly the extent of my fuzzy knowledge of Carter County.

What I do know is that Carter County resident Robin Webb owes a great deal of her election today to the good folks of her home county. She won the county 3105 to 1955, an 1150 vote margin. She won her entire district by only 282 votes. She also carried Robertson County, Kentucky's smallest county both in size and voters, where she won 168 to 142. The 18th Senate District has six counties. She lost the other four; sizably in Greenup County, the home of her Republican opponent.

Bracken, Carter, Greenup, Mason, and Robertson all boast Democratic registration of from nearly 2/1 in Carter to almost 6/1 in Robertson. Nonetheless, she lost three of those five. In the other county in the 18th, Lewis, with the courthouse at Vanceburg, there are 2472 registered Democrats and 6994 registered Republicans. But did Lewis have a blowout victory for the GOP candidate? No, there the loss for Robin was 1072 to 1184. That's pretty respectable for a county with such lobsided registration.

So, here's to the voters of Carter County and Lewis too. Today they elected a new Democratic State Senator in the 18th District, my friend Robin Webb. And while Robin's win doesn't tilt the scales entirely to a friendlier Senate, it does tend to lead us a little more down our path that their's.

Robin Webb (D) - 8684
Dr. Jack Ditty (R) - 8402
Guy Gibbons (I) - 952

The turnout was 23.6%.

The truth is we have our work cut out for us next November when this seat is back on the ballot.