Clinton County voters pretty much followed the norm of votes cast last Tuesday, November 7, 2023 by voters across the state, with the lone exception of giving a heavy nod locally to Republican Governor nominee Daniel Cameron.
When the statewide vote totals were tallied last week, incumbent Democrat Governor Andy Beshear had won another four-year term in the Commonwealth’s top elected office.
If there were any surprises in the general election last week, it might have been the margin of victory that Beshear garnered over Cameron.
Although early polling in the Governor’s race showed Beshear commanding a strong lead, as election day neared, polling suggested that Cameron had closed that gap in the final days prior to voting, noting that the two candidates were running neck and neck.
As it turned out, that wasn’t the case, with Beshear defeating Cameron across Kentucky by just over 67,000 votes.
That margin of victory for Beshear was far greater than his narrow 5,000 vote win over then incumbent Matt Bevin in 2019.
Beshear and his Lt. Governor running mate, Jacqueline Coleman, won re-election with 53 percent of Kentucky votes, while Cameron and his Lt. Governor running mate Robert M. Mills earned 47 percent of Kentucky votes.
In Clinton County, Cameron finished Tuesday’s voting with 1,888 votes to Beshear’s 607 votes, just over a 3-1 margin in a county that has Republicans outnumbering Democrat voters by more than a 4-1 margin.
Beshear finished last week’s voting in Clinton county as the Democrat who earned the most votes here among the six races for state office.
Clinton County, where Republican voters account for 85 percent of the total 7,451 registered voters, is the second highest county, percentage wise, of Republican voters to Democrat voters, behind only Leslie County with 87 percent Republicans vs. Democrat registration.
The only “local” race, so to speak, was in the 3rd magisterial district for that seat on the Clinton County Fiscal Court.
Terry Buster was the only candidate appearing Tuesday in that race, being selected as the Republican nominee by the Clinton County Republican Party, following the resignation of that district’s magistrate, Gary Tallent.
Tallent resigned his seat on the Clinton County Fiscal Court in March of this year, citing health reasons.  He passed away later this year and the seat remained open until Buster’s unopposed election to the position last week.
In other races appearing on Tuesday’s ballot, it was a clean sweep for Republican where statewide races were concerned, with the GOP candidates finishing in front not only in Clinton County ballots, but in statewide totals as well.
Locally, Michael Adams defeated Democrat Charles Wheatley 2,110 votes to 338 in the race for Secretary of State; Republican Russell Coleman finished with 2,106 votes while Democrat Pamela Stevenson had 351 votes in the race for Attorney General; Republican Allison Ball earned 2,126 votes to Democrat Kimberlee Reeder’s 324 votes in the race for Auditor of Public Accounts; Republican Mark Metcalfe finished with 2,097 votes to Democrat Michael Bowman’s 356 votes in the race for State Treasurer; Republican Jonathan Shell had 2,151 votes over Democrat Sierra Enlow’s 316 votes in the race for Commissioner of Agriculture.
Clinton County saw a total of 2,521 voters casting ballots in the general election, a nearly 34 percent turnout.
Voters who made it to the poll on election day in Clinton County totaled 1,596, while voting in the three-day “Early Voting” window saw 751 voters cast ballots.
Absentee paper ballots were cast by 153 voters, while 21 voters cast ballots on the excused voting machines in the County Clerk’s office during that six-day voting period.