Courtesy of Kentucky Lantern
November 3, 2026
LEXINGTON — Kentucky Democrats have regained control of a central U.S. House District with former federal prosecutor and Navy veteran Zach Dembo.
Gaining support from top Kentucky Democrats, like Gov. Andy Beshear, and national figures, Dembo was elected in Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District Tuesday evening. Unofficial results showed Dembo winning by a 10-point margin with 53% of the vote to Alvarado’s 43%. Alvarado conceded shortly after 9 p.m., although The Associated Press called the win at 10:15.
“Central Kentucky, tonight is your night,” Dembo said to cheers from the crowd. “I know we did this together, there are so many people in this room who believed in this race … thank you and hard work pays off.”
Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, who represented the district since 2012, ran for U.S. Senate, opening the seat this year. Republican Ralph Alvarado, a former state senator and Tennessee Department of Health commissioner, attempted to keep the seat in GOP hands. He was backed by President Donald Trump in the primary, but tried to distance himself from the president in the general election.
Dembo and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear were greeted on stage by a round of cheers and applause at a Lexington watch party. Beshear, who is also the chair of the Democratic Governors Association and had his eyes on races around the country, said Dembo’s win in Central Kentucky showed “Democrats can win anywhere, and we should be fighting everywhere.” The governor said Democrats’ wins Tuesday sends a message against President Donald Trump’s policies.
“We’re sending a message of no more tariffs. We’re sending a message of no more of Trump’s war in Iran. We’re sending a strong message of ‘Enjoy the ballroom because your party only has two years left,’” Beshear said. “We are saying enough — enough of the toxicity, enough of the division, enough of the cruelty and enough of the meanness.”
Democratic-sponsored polls publicly released before November showed Dembo had an edge with voters over Alvarado. Race raters like The Cook Political Report moved the district from a safe Republican seat to a toss-up days before the election.
Kentucky Democrats quickly fell in line after Dembo won the primary election to support him in the district. Beshear joined Dembo for a rally in Lexington on the first night of early voting last week. Before that, the governor appeared in an ad with Dembo poking fun at a cardboard cutout of former Gov. Matt Bevin, who Beshear defeated in 2019. Alvarado was Bevin’s running mate in that election.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday night, Dembo said he hopes Trump is open to working on things to benefit Central Kentucky. During his October rally, Trump had promised the U.S. Department of Defense would invest in a pharmaceutical company in Winchester if Republicans contained control of Congress during midterms.
“If he doesn’t, then I’m going to oppose him,” Dembo said of Trump. “All that matters is what he’s doing for the Kentucky 6.”
Alvarado thanked his supporters for his campaign.
“I know this is not the outcome that we all were hoping to celebrate,” he said at his party in Winchester. “We worked really hard in this campaign. I think we believed in this campaign. We believed in the message that we carried across the Commonwealth. We believed in the people who joined us along the way, and while tonight didn’t turn out the way we had hoped, I want you to know something that I would not have traded the journey we have taken together really for anything. Because campaigns are about more than election results. They’re about people, and they’re about friendships and conversations and shared values, and the belief that we can make a difference in the communities that we call home.”
Dembo previously worked in the Beshear administration. After Trump returned to office in January 2025, Dembo left his role as a federal prosecutor. Dembo previously told the Kentucky Lantern he did so because he “couldn’t stand by while the administration was playing politics with the justice system to carry out a personal political agenda instead of protecting the Constitution.”
Dembo carved out a lane as a moderate Democrat in the race, and referred to himself as such in his first televised debate with Alvarado on Fox56 in late October. From that encounter, Democrats also pushed a clip of Alvarado saying his wife “does a lot of the (grocery) shopping for us” to go viral from that debate in response to a question about how his family has been affected by rising grocery prices. The Alvarado team later defended the answer, telling WHAS: “By making an issue out of who does the grocery shopping, Zach Dembo proved he doesn’t understand how normal families divide responsibilities.”
Groups on both sides of the aisle spent heavily in the race, with PACs spending more than $6 million leading up to the general election. Those groups included PACS allied with Trump and Beshear. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also had its eyes on flipping the seat, naming the seat as a district in play and putting the race on its Red to Blue program.
Democrats last controlled the 6th Congressional District before the 2012 election, when former U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler was defeated by Barr.
Rocky Adkins, who is a Democrat running for governor, spoke to reporters at Dembo’s watch party early Tuesday evening and was optimistic about how the night would go for Kentucky Democrats.
“I expect a really good night tonight for Zach Dembo. I think, without question, Zach is a hard worker,” Adkins said. “He’s done the ground work that you had to do as well as raising the money, getting his message out.”
Adkins added that no matter the outcome, Dembo had “left it all on the court” and ran a campaign focusing on concerns from Kentuckians about policies coming out of Washington, D.C.
Speaking of that city, Kentucky’s other Democratic congressman, U.S. Rep. Morgan McGarvey of the 3rd Congressional District, celebrated Tuesday night: “There’s about to be 100% more Kentucky Democrats in Congress! Congratulations Congressman-elect Zach Dembo – see you in DC!”
This story has been updated with additional information.
Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Linda Blackford for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com.
