County Read No. 9 · Campbell County
The closest House seat in Kentucky is in Campbell County: 30 votes
Newport's county is the most Democratic of the three Northern Kentucky counties and the only one that gives Beshear a real margin — eight points in 2023. It has the closest House seat in Kentucky, a second seat where Beshear won the county's precincts by twelve votes and the incumbent has seven dollars to the challenger's one, and a Democratic column that shows up in off-years and disappears in federal ones.
LOUISVILLE — Ninth of twenty, the last of the Northern Kentucky three, and the one that's different. Same five questions: the paper, the ballots, the turnout, the map, the money.
What the paper says. Campbell County has 73,336 registered voters on the August file: 26,423 Democrats, 35,210 Republicans, 11,703 in neither column. That's 36.0% Democratic, 48.0% Republican, 16.0% no-party — third-highest no-party share in the state, behind Kenton and Boone. In 2010 it was 44.9% Democratic and 43.9% Republican, even on paper, the same starting point as Kenton. Sixteen years later the Republican column added 8,800, the Democratic column lost 570, and the no-party column grew from 6,700 to 11,700. The purge took 6,532 names since Election Day 2024 — 3,408 Democrats, 2,667 Republicans — a heavier cut than either of its neighbors took.
What the ballots say. The best Beshear number north of the river.
On a federal ballot Campbell is Republican by twenty: Romney by 23, Trump by 25, then 19, then 20 — 28,450 to 18,952 in 2024. That's the least Republican of the three Northern Kentucky counties on a presidential ballot, two points better for Democrats than Kenton and seventeen better than Boone. On a governor's ballot it's a Democratic county, and by more than a whisker: Beshear by 5.6 in 2019 and by 8.4 in 2023 — 16,885 to 14,271, a 2,614-vote margin. That's a 28-point swing, same as its neighbors, but it starts closer and lands further: Beshear's best county in Northern Kentucky, twice.
Who's turning out. Same shape as Kenton and Boone in a federal year. Different shape in an off-year.
In 2019, Campbell's registered Democrats out-voted its Republicans, 41.6 to 41.4. In 2023 they were within six-tenths of a point, 42.2 to 42.8. That's the difference between Campbell and its neighbors: in a Beshear year, the Democratic column here shows up at the Republican rate, which is why Beshear wins the county by eight instead of six or losing it by twelve. In a federal year the gap opens to what it is everywhere in Northern Kentucky — 5.6 points in 2022, 8.2 in 2024 — and the county goes back to Republican by twenty. The no-party column, 11,703 voters, turned out at 31.5% in 2022 and 27.1% in 2023, better than Kenton or Boone by four to five points.
Campbell's Democrats show up for Beshear and not for anyone else. That's why it's the only Northern Kentucky county with a Democratic House seat — and why that seat was held by 30 votes.
Where it happens. Campbell reported its 2024 presidential results by 46 vote centers, and only 35 of those match a precinct on the map. So the three-election test here uses the 2022 Senate race instead of 2024 — Booker against Paul — set against Beshear against Cameron in 2023, on all 66 precincts. Same idea, one election older, and in this county it may be the better test anyway: Paul is closer to what a Republican does here in a midterm than Trump is.
Twenty-three precincts voted for Booker and for Beshear — 8,687 votes in 2022, Booker by 1,291, Beshear by 2,902. That's Newport and the river towns. Nineteen voted for Paul and for Cameron: 12,641 votes, Paul by 5,410, Cameron by 1,823 — the rural south. And 24 voted for Paul and then for Beshear: 14,336 votes, Paul by 1,918, Beshear by 1,535. The flip precincts are the middle of the county, the suburbs between the river and the farms, and they're where both House races live.
The 67th — Matthew Lehman's, the 30-vote seat — has 32 Campbell precincts: nineteen blue, eleven cyan, two red. Booker carried them by 308; Beshear by 3,258. It's the Democratic core of Northern Kentucky, and it was held by 30 votes in a presidential year.
The 68th — Mike Clines's — has 31 Campbell precincts: thirteen flip, four blue, fourteen red. Paul carried them by 4,982. Beshear carried them by twelve. Twelve votes. Across the whole district, including its precincts outside Campbell, Cameron won by 1.5 and Trump by 27. That's the seat.
What's on the ballot, and who's paying. Two House districts and one Senate district cover the county, plus a sliver of the 78th. Three of the four have a Democrat.
The 67th. Lehman held Rachel Roberts's old seat by 9,435 to 9,405 in 2024. Terry Hatton is the Republican again and has no 60-day report on file. Lehman has $65,156 and has spent $23,724 of it — the most any Democratic incumbent in the state had spent by mid-September. Nineteen of his 32 Campbell precincts are blue on the map above, and thirty votes is one apartment building in Newport.
The 68th. Amy Amin has $16,765 against Mike Clines's $115,086 — seven to one — in the seat where Beshear's Campbell-County margin was twelve votes and Cameron's district-wide margin was 1.5. The 68th is the only Republican-held seat in Northern Kentucky where the 2023 governor's race was within two points, and the money says the Republicans know it: Clines's $115,086 is the eleventh-largest general-election account in the House.
Senate District 24. Shelley Funke Frommeyer, 61.7% in 2022, has $65,700 against Joshua Baker's $5,807. The 78th is Mark Hart's, three Campbell precincts, no Democrat.
The read. Campbell is what Kenton would be if its Democratic column voted. Same even-on-paper start in 2010, same drift to the no-party column, same 28-point Beshear swing — but here the Democrats turn out at the Republican rate in an off-year, the swing lands at plus-eight instead of plus-six, and there's a Democratic House seat to show for it. The 67th is the closest seat in Kentucky and the Democrat in it is spending like he knows. The 68th is the seat the map keeps pointing at — Beshear +12 in the county's precincts, Cameron +1.5 district-wide — and the money in it is seven to one the wrong way. In a Beshear-shaped year, Campbell holds one and takes a run at the other. In a Trump-shaped year, it holds one by thirty again.
What I'm watching in November: the 67th on the precinct returns, the thirteen flip precincts in the 68th, and whether Campbell's Democratic column shows up at the 2023 rate or the 2022 one. That one number decides both seats.
Tomorrow: Madison.
Disclosure: I work in Kentucky Democratic politics. I'm not paid by, and don't advise, any candidate named above. I read this county the same way whether or not it's good news for my side — that's the job.