LEXINGTON, Ky. — In a nationally watched race, Central Kentucky voters on Tuesday flipped the 6th Congressional District from red to blue by electing Democrat Zach Dembo to the U.S. House over Republican Ralph Alvarado.

Kentucky’s 6th District was considered a bellwether because it went for Republican President Donald Trump by a 15-point margin in 2024 but showed early signs of flipping this year as Trump sagged in the polls. It was Kentucky’s only competitive federal race in 2026.

Dembo claimed victory at his watch party Tuesday just prior to 9:30 p.m., holding nearly a 10-point margin at that point with about 80% of votes counted.

Around the same time, Alvarado conceded the race at his party.

Decision Desk HQ called the race in favor of Dembo shortly before that.

“The greatness of this country is that when the votes are counted, we respect the decision and we move forward, and that’s what makes our democracy very strong,” Alvarado said.

Alvarado said he called Dembo and congratulated him before giving his concession speech.

“To the candidate who prevailed, I would simply say this: The responsibility you now carry is greater than the victory you’re going to celebrate tonight. The people who supported you deserve your best. And so do the people who did not.”

Dembo, 40, is a newcomer to Kentucky politics. He’s a Navy veteran and former federal prosecutor in Lexington who ran as a pragmatic centrist through a crowded Democratic primary last spring and the general election this fall.

He worked during the COVID-19 pandemic as an aide to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, a popular two-term incumbent who endorsed Dembo and helpfully appeared with him on the campaign trail and in television ads.

Dembo said he’s wary of extremists in both political parties, focusing his campaign on the themes of cost and corruption.

He criticized Republican President Donald Trump on tariffs and the Iran war, saying they drove up prices for Kentuckians and caused needless suffering. He warned that Trump’s massive One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Republican lawmakers pushed through in 2025, will lead to food stamp and healthcare cuts in Kentucky.

As he often told the story, Dembo quit his “dream job” as a prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice in May 2025 because he believed Trump was politicizing the agency, turning it into his own personal law firm to hand out favors to friends and exact revenge on enemies.

However, Dembo also criticized former Democratic President Joe Biden for not doing a better job of securing the U.S. border with Mexico, allowing undocumented immigrants into the country.

“It’s very clear that President Biden and the national Democratic Party’s neglect of the crisis at our southern border was a complete dereliction of duty,” Dembo told the Herald-Leader in September.

As an assistant U.S. attorney, he prosecuted people for violating the nation’s immigration laws — either committing crimes while in the country illegally or exploiting undocumented workers in unsafe conditions.

In attacks on his opponent, the 56-year-old Alvarado, Dembo highlighted the Republican’s work as a medical director at substandard nursing homes while pushing laws in the Kentucky Senate to shield nursing homes from lawsuits.

Dembo also faulted Alvarado for standing by silently while his 2019 running mate, Republican Gov. Matt Bevin, issued hundreds of controversial pardons, outraging Kentuckians.

At his concession speech, Alvarado, who was emotional, thanked his voters for being involved in the race.

“You participated in the American Democratic process. You stood up for what you believed in. And you reminded us that citizenship is not a spectator sport,” Alvarado said.

The 6th District seat has been held since 2013 by Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Barr of Lexington, who ran for the U.S. Senate this year.

Only in the midterm elections of 2018, with challenger Amy McGrath, did Democrats come close to reclaiming the seat. Before Barr, the 6th District switched back and forth fairly regularly between Democrats like Ben Chandler and Scotty Baesler and Republicans like Ernie Fletcher and Larry Hopkins.

But the GOP-led Kentucky legislature redrew the district’s boundaries in 2022, making it friendlier to Republicans by removing overwhelmingly Democratic Franklin County, where the state capital of Frankfort sits.

Voter registration in the district is currently 245,418 Republicans, 244,080 Democrats and 70,038 independent and third-party voters.

To win in the 6th District now, Democrats must run up huge numbers in the city of Lexington, a college town that is generally more liberal, while the outlying suburbs and rural counties are more conservative.

Dembo benefited from a midterm “blue wave” of voter frustration against Trump and the Republican Party that sank the president to record lows in his approval ratings.

Americans told pollsters they’re angry about high prices, and especially energy costs, resulting from Trump’s trade wars and his war against Iran.

By the time Dembo and Alvarado debated last month at the FOX 56 studios in Lexington, Alvarado retracted his yearlong support for Trump on the Iran war and said it was time for the U.S. to end those hostilities.

“I think we need to end the war in Iran, is what we need to do right now,” Alvarado said at the Oct. 22 debate. “And I’m not sure what his (Trump’s) position is, if it’s changed, but I think after it started, I think it’s time for us to end it. It’s run its course, and we need to be able to clear away from that right now.”

Because Dembo never ran for or held elected office before, there wasn’t much of a record for Alvarado, his opponent, to use against him, although Alvarado did repeatedly attack him for prosecuting law enforcement officers for criminal violations of citizens’ civil rights, such as beating handcuffed and shackled prisoners.

Alvarado also seized on a $500,000 donation made to a PAC supporting Dembo that came from Reid Hoffman, a venture capitalist who was friends with the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Muddying that attack, Alvarado himself received campaign assistance from people with Epstein ties, including Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Trump’s endorsement of Alvarado, amid the president’s plummeting approval rating, wasn’t enough to maintain Republican control of the 6th Congressional District. Trump also made a last-minute push for Alvarado in a social media video Thursday, touting his medical background and support for the right to carry a gun.

“Nothing will touch the Second Amendment and it has not been easy, but I protected it. Ralph will help me,” Trump said in the video.

But Alvarado’s alliance with Trump flip-flopped after he won the Republican primary in May and scrubbed Trump-related messaging and graphics from his campaign website, NBC News reported.

Steve Robertson, former chairman of Kentucky’s Republican Party who helped Alvarado through his first run for state legislature in 2004, said during Alvarado’s watch party on Tuesday that could’ve impacted the congressional race.

“Public polling suggests that there are a lot more people that don’t have the same view of the president as when he was reelected,” Robertson said. “That’s certainly been stated publicly.”

Robertson said he expected the race to be close. “It stands to be a really competitive and long evening,” he said before results came in. Still, Robertson said he thinks the Republican Party is “stronger” and more “enthusiastic” than ever.

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