James Kay wins special election; carries all but three Woodford County precincts, including both in Midway

UPDATE, July 31: Tom Loftus of The Courier-Journal reports that $631,000 was spent on the election by the three campaigns, the two parties and allied committees.

James Kay

Democrat James Kay II won Tuesday's special election for state representative with 44 percent of the vote over Republican Lyen Crews, who got 34 percent, and independent John-Mark Hack, with 22 percent.

The district comprises all of Woodford County, eastern Franklin County and some western Fayette County precincts. Crews carried the Fayette section and the Big Sink Firehouse, Paddock Church and Mortonsville Southside Church precincts in Woodford. In his 2010 race against Democratic incumbent Carl Rollins, he carried them and the two Huntertown precincts. All three candidates are from Versailles. Here is the county-by-county vote, as reported by cn|2:

PERCENTAGE OF VOTE	KAY	CREWS	HACK
FRANKLIN County	46%	36%	18%
FAYETTE County	40%	44%	16%
WOODFORD County	44%	31%	25%

Kay carried both Midway precincts, but won the county precinct very narrowly, with 68 votes (38.6 percent) to 66 for Crews (37.5 percent) and 42 (23.9 percent) for Hack. In the 2010 election against Democrat Carl Rollins, Crews got 151 votes, or 41.4 percent.

Kay ran strongly in the city precinct, getting 195 votes, or 52.7 percent of the total. Crews got 93, or 25.48 percent; Hack received 82, or 22.47 percent. In 2010, Crews got 33 percent. At the time, he was business vice president of Midway College, but Rollins lives in Midway.

Rollins resigned the seat in order to head the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority. Kay will serve the remainder of his term, which runs through the end of 2014. His first legislative session will be a special one, called by Gov. Steve Beshear for Aug. 19 to draw new legislative and judicial districts.

The election will be one of the topics discussed tonight on KET's "Comment on Kentucky," starting at 8 p.m.