A Louisville union president kept a Kentucky Senate seat in Democratic hands in Tuesday’s special election. The party heralded what it characterized as Gary Clemons’ overperformance in the district as a sign of growing support for Democrats.
Clemons, the president of the Steelworkers Local 1693, won the election for the 37th Kentucky Senate District with about 72% of the vote, according to unofficial results. The Republican candidate who previously sought the seat, retired Army veteran Calvin Leach, received 25% of the vote.
Overall, 5,181 votes were cast in the special election.
“Tonight, the people of Senate District 37 sent a clear message: they want a fighter in Frankfort who will stand up for working families, not corporate interests and greed,” Clemons said in a statement. “I’m honored by the trust voters have placed in me, and I’m ready to go fight for jobs, childcare, healthcare and all the things Kentucky’s working families need. For far too long, Wall Street greed has crushed working families in Frankfort. This is just the beginning of reclaiming our state for regular working people.”
The Louisville Democratic Party nominated Clemons to run for the seat, which opened after former Senate Democratic Whip David Yates was appointed as Jefferson County clerk earlier this year. Yates had launched a campaign for the local office in the spring, but it became vacant after late Republican Jefferson County Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw died in September.
Kentucky’s top Democrat, Gov. Andy Beshear, said online that Clemons’ victory continued “the trend of Democrats outperforming previous elections by wide margins all over the country.”
By comparison, former Vice President Kamala Harris carried the district by six points in the 2024 election. Yates was also on the ballot in the district last year and received 60% of the vote to Leach’s 40%. About 42,000 ballots were cast in that election.
Shortly after Louisville Republicans nominated Leach for this year’s election, Louisville Public Media reported on his previous blog posts that said “millennial females” aren’t “wife material” and described the “vast majority of young women” as “promiscuous skanks” with “no moral compass.”
Clemons will join a Democratic caucus with six seats in the Kentucky Senate. Republicans hold 32 seats, as well as a supermajority in the House. The 2026 legislative session begins in early January.
Louisville Democrat Sen. Gerald Neal, the minority floor leader, said in a statement that Clemons’ campaign was “authentic, grounded in working people’s real struggles and unafraid to call out the policies that are hurting Kentucky families.”
“The Kentucky Senate Democratic Caucus Campaign Committee invested in this race because we knew Gary’s message would resonate,” Neal added. “Tonight proves that when we organize, invest in infrastructure and run on what matters to people’s lives, we win.”
Kentucky Democratic Party Chair Colmon Elridge said in a statement that South Louisville voters sent a message that “they are fed up with Republicans ignoring, undermining and demeaning the workers that have built Kentucky’s economy, and want their elected leaders to focus on affordability, common sense and compassion.”
This story was originally published by the Kentucky Lantern and republished here with permission.