Kentucky Democrat Wins GOP-Held House Seat

Former state Atty. Gen. Ben Chandler on Tuesday easily won the House seat of the man who beat him in the governor’s race, ending a long Democratic losing streak in congressional special elections.

Chandler, scion of one of Kentucky’s most prominent political families, defeated Republican Alice Forgy Kerr. He will fill the rest of Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s term in the central Kentucky district that includes Lexington and Frankfort.

With 100% of precincts counted, Chandler had 83,890 votes, or 55%. Kerr had 65,300, or 43%. A third-party candidate trailed.

“I know what it’s like to be on the other side, and it feels pretty good to be on this side tonight,” Chandler said in his victory speech in Richmond. “It’s been a wild ride for me and my family the last year and a half.”

In the nation’s first federal election of 2004, Chandler became the first Democrat since 1991 to win a GOP-held seat in a special election. The win leaves Republicans with a 228-205 majority in the House, with one vacancy and one independent.

Some Democrats claimed the race in Bluegrass country, home to horse and tobacco farms, had national implications.

Rep. Robert T. Matsui, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Chandler’s victory was “a clear message to the arrogant Republican government in Washington that Americans are ready for a change” and that Republican policies “have totally failed to create jobs in Kentucky as in so many other states.”

But state Republican Party Chairwoman Ellen Williams suggested that Chandler’s name recognition to voters was the key factor.

Chandler presented himself as a fiscal conservative in a district that is 60% Democrat by voter registration but that tends to favor Republicans in federal elections. George W. Bush carried the state by 15 points over Al Gore in 2000.

Chandler was familiar to many voters because of his 12 years in state government -- four as auditor, eight as attorney general -- and because his grandfather, A.B. “Happy” Chandler, was twice elected governor, served in the U.S. Senate and was commissioner of baseball.

Kerr, a state senator from Lexington, based her campaign in large part on her support of President Bush, who made a commercial for Kerr’s campaign.