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Kentucky Demographics and Voter Stats

By Jeralyn

Kentucky demographics favor Hillary Clinton.

Obama has a slight chance in Louisville, an urban area, but very little elsewhere in the state.

Trade with China is important to KY since its farmers grow tobacco for China and sell them a lot of Maker's Mark and Wild Turkey bourbon. About $300 million a year's worth.

Kentucky, like other states, will set a record for voting tomorrow, but new registratons are lower there than we've ssen in other states.

A record 2.8 million Kentuckians are registered to vote in the primary election. Of those, 1.6 million are Democrats. And, despite the close presidential primary, the number of new registered voters hasn't skyrocketed. In the past six months, 16,000 people have registered, 13,000 of them as Democrats.

A map of Kentucky is below the fold.

More demographics:

Records from the Kentucky Board of Elections show that 53 percent of the state's registered voters are women, a demographic that has played in Clinton's favor in other states. Kentucky doesn't track party registrants by race, but blacks make up only 7.4 percent of the state's population compared with 12.4 percent nationally — a far smaller minority voting bloc than in other Southern states carried by Obama.

Absentee ballots were available starting May 2 and have to be received by May 20, the date of the primary. In the 2004 primary (pdf), there were 563, 000 registered voters and a 23% turnout (375,000 voted in the Democratic primary, a 24% turnout.) Women and men voted in roughly equal numbers.

It's a closed primary and party registration changes had to be in by December 31. Registration ended April 22, 2008. Independents cannot vote in the primary.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 20, 2008 (boomark / email).