Jimmy Carter

The Democratic National Convention will be called to order at 5:00 PM EST today, with a theme of "One Nation."  Featured speakers include Michelle Obama, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), former President Jimmy Carter, and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, who will introduce a tribute to her uncle, U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). 

Do Kentucky voters like to hedge their votes between national and state leaders? The party that wins Kentucky's popular vote in Presidential elections has usually gone on to lose the governor's seat, though the trend has broken in recent years.

After eight of the nine presidential elections between 1956 and 1988, the commonwealth elected a governor from the party that lost the popular vote in the prior presidential election. The exception was in 1976 when Jimmy Carter (D) carried Kentucky, followed by the gubernatorial election of John Y. Brown Jr., (D) in 1979.

Voters then elected President Bill Clinton (D) and Governor Paul E. Patton (D) twice in the `90s, though Clinton's pluralities may have been facilitated by Independent candidate Ross Perot, especially in 1992 when he drew 25 percent of the vote. Republican Ernie Fletcher was elected governor in 2003 following George W. Bush's (R) victory in 2000. Perhaps reverting back to an old trend, the election of Steve Beshear's (D) in 2007 followed President Bush's 20 point Kentucky win in 2004.