While more than half of Kentucky residents are women, they lead less than 7% of the commonwealth’s county governments. That could change with this year’s elections, where nearly 40 counties have at least one woman running for the leadership role.
In every county – except those run by metro governments – judge-executives operate similarly to city mayors. As the head of a county’s government, judge-executives create budgets and oversee the implementation of local policies, according to the Kentucky Association of Counties (KACo).
Out of 120 judge-executive positions in the state of Kentucky, only eight are currently filled by women.
Jean Sinzdak, an associate director at the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University, said that statistic isn’t unexpected.
“Under-representation by gender is nothing new,” Sinzdak said. “In local offices overall, across the country, women are only about a third of all local offices. This is even lower than that, but it's not a surprise.”
The number of Kentucky women holding judge-executive offices has doubled from four years ago. But according to the Lexington Herald-Leader, it’s still down from 1998, when nine women served as judge-executives.
One potential barrier for women trying to get elected is the incumbency advantage – the increased likelihood that those who currently hold an office will be re-elected. Sinzdak said men hold the vast majority of elected offices across the nation, which gives those incumbents an advantage over challengers, including women running for the office.
“Men [traditionally] have held those positions, and some positions [they’ve held] for decades, and so it's a barrier for any newcomer,” Sinzdak said.
But men don’t dominate all types of elected office in Kentucky. In fact, women hold a majority of the state’s county clerk offices – which manage deeds, marriage licenses and vehicle registrations along with overseeing elections. Women currently hold 74 out of those 120 positions.
However, Sinzdak said under-representation of women is especially noticeable when looking at who is elected to be the head of the government – whether it’s at the local, state or federal level.
“We know it's harder for women to get elected as governors than it is, to say, as members of Congress,” Sinzdak said. “Part of that is the type of role that it is, executive leadership versus serving in the legislative branch, where you're one of a larger body. That is just something about how voters, and also those that are supporting women candidates, feel about putting women forward for the singular leadership role, the executive role.”
Political party affiliation can also play a role. Sinzdak said Democrats tend to view having a variety of perspectives from people with different identities, including gender, race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status, as important when it comes to policymaking. Thus, she said the Democratic party places emphasis on recruiting women and other people from underrepresented backgrounds.
Sinzdak said the Republican party looks at their candidates differently.
“On the Republican side, the messaging has very much been about ‘it's not who you are, but it's how much you're going to adhere to the party platform,’” Sinzdak said. “That's one challenge that we've seen in terms of Republican women: your gender isn't necessarily seen as an asset. It's not seen as a problem, but it's not necessarily seen as something [they] need to be thoughtful about.”
Lyon County Republican Judge Executive Jaime Green-Smith, who was the first woman to hold the title of police chief in Eddyville, was first elected to the office in 2022. She said she doesn’t think any of the challenges that came with running for office four years ago stemmed from her gender.
“I wouldn't say any of them are a barrier because of male or female,” Green-Smith said. “I don't think that really has anything to do with it. You know, a lot of our struggles is just the way that our county is comprised.”
Groups teaching women how to run successful campaigns
Sinzdak said when women do run for office, they tend to perform at levels comparable to men in similar races. However, one problem she has observed is that women aren’t always being considered as potential candidates.
“The issue is not that women can't win, it's just that they're not necessarily being recruited and supported,” Sinzdak said. “One thing that can be done is to be more thoughtful and make a concerted effort on the recruitment side of things, and really bring more women into the process.”
One group working to change that pattern in the Bluegrass State is Emerge Kentucky. The organization, geared toward Democrats, offers a training program to help women run for office.
Blair Haydon, the group’s executive director, said diversity is a priority when selecting the 25-30 women who participate in the annual program.
“It's really important for us that we have a very diverse group of women. We want women of all age groups, all backgrounds, all types of demographic factors, and certainly in all areas of the state,” Haydon said. “We work really hard to recruit in that kind of way. And we realize that we need every type of woman at the table, and all those experiences and backgrounds matter in these elected positions.”
Since Emerge Kentucky’s founding in 2009, over 300 women have graduated from its training program. Forty-six of those alumnae currently serve in elected offices, including on school boards, city councils, judgeships and the state legislature.
“The numbers really increase every year,” Haydon said. “It's very exciting to see women who haven't always been involved in politics and did not really plan for this to be something in their future but as they've watched things happening in their communities and things that are affected by their elected officials, they've decided to do something about it.”
The Kentucky Federation of Republican Women has previously provided trainings to women who were considering running for various offices in the Bluegrass State. She Should Run’s program operates on the national level for women with any political affiliation.
“There's research that shows that when women run, women win,” Haydon said. “And when they get elected, they work very well across party lines and with other folks to implement policies that help children and families. We're all doing better the more women we get elected and at the table.”
This year, 47 women filed to run for judge-executive offices across Kentucky, making up 14.3% of the candidate pool. Thirty-eight out of Kentucky’s 120 counties will have at least one woman running for judge-executive either in the primary or general elections.
