KENTUCKY — On this week’s ‘In Focus Kentucky’ program, we’re discussing the state of non-partisan elections in local government across the Commonwealth.
The era of partisan elections is over for candidates running in Louisville’s mayoral and Metro Council races.
The 2024 election cycle marked the last partisan election for Louisville’s 26-member Metro Council. In 2026, both the mayoral and council elections will become “nonpartisan,” meaning candidates no longer will have a political party distinction next to their names.
State Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Middletown, led the charge as the sponsor of HB 388 in the 2024 Kentucky General Assembly, which is a large piece of legislation impacting Louisville.
“So we have over 400 cities in Kentucky, and only six of them are partisan. Of the biggest 30 cities in the country, 22 of them are non partisan. So Louisville was in the minority with respect to our city being partisan. And so I looked at that and thought it’d be a better idea to be nonpartisan. Started talking to a number of people, including a lot of my constituents, who agreed. And the main benefit, I think, is that it’s going to have the mayor, the mayoral candidate, candidates all around the county to hunt votes beforehand, if all you had to do was win the Democratic primary, and you could do that inside the Watterson and then the race was pretty much over. What this will require is that the mayor go all around the county to look for votes, and when you do that, you’re going to care a little bit more about the traffic issues in PRP you’re going to care more about the environmental issues in Fisherville, and you’re going to know exactly, actually nowhere, where Fern Creek is, whereas right now, you don’t have to do those kinds of things. So it’s a way to bring all of us more together,” said Nemes.
The bill recommendations made by the Louisville Metro Comprehensive Review Commission, a bipartisan group that studied the impact of the 2003 city-county merger.
You can watch the full 'In Focus Kentucky' segment in the player above.