FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A longtime state lawmaker announced Friday that she is switching parties, joining Republican supermajorities in the latest setback for Democrats trying to rebuild support across rural Kentucky.
State Sen. Robin Webb, who represents a four-county swath of northeastern Kentucky, revealed she will join the ranks of GOP lawmakers who control the flow of legislation in the state. Webb was one of the last rural Democrats in Kentucky’s legislature, and her defection leaves her ex-party more tethered to urban and suburban districts in a state with large stretches of rural territory controlled by the GOP.
Webb said in a prepared release that the state’s Democratic Party has continued to “lurch left.”
“It has become untenable and counterproductive to the best interests of my constituents for me to remain a Democrat,” Webb said. “I will continue to be a fearless advocate for rural Kentucky and for the residents of eastern Kentucky who have been so good to me and my family.”
Webb has compiled a resume deeply ingrained in Kentucky culture. She has ties to the coal industry and is a well-known gun enthusiast who changed career paths to become an attorney.
Webb first joined the Kentucky House in 1999, when Democrats controlled the chamber. She spent a decade as a state representative before joining the GOP-led Senate in 2009. Republicans seized total control of the legislature in the 2016 election, when they rode Donald Trump’s coattails to win the Kentucky House for the first time in nearly a century. Republicans padded their legislative numbers in subsequent elections, giving them their overwhelming majorities.
Republicans attained that dominance by winning in rural districts previously held by Democrats, but Webb’s district had remained a blue dot on the map until Friday.
Her party switch leaves Democrats mostly devoid of a rural presence in the legislature. One exception is Democratic state Rep. Ashley Tackett Laferty, who represents an Appalachian district.
The state’s two-term governor, Democrat Andy Beshear, won a number of rural counties and shrank GOP margins in others in his 2023 reelection. His popularity was built on the state’s robust economic growth in his first term and his handling of disasters, from tornadoes and floods to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kentucky Democrats are trying to spark a rural comeback with a grassroots strategy, evidenced by the state party’s ongoing “listening tour” with stops in culturally conservative towns across the state.
Lawmakers will begin their 2026 session in early January, but Beshear has said he will likely call lawmakers back for a special session sometime this year to take up storm-relief funding. Parts of southeastern Kentucky were devastated by deadly tornadoes earlier in May, while other parts of the Bluegrass State were inundated by flooding in April.
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