November elections get all the glory.
But this year more than half of the state races in Kentucky will be decided by the end of the primary election.
For some candidates, filing their paperwork to run has essentially secured them their office because no one else filed to run against them. In many other races, the candidate who wins the primary will not face an opponent in the general election, meaning they’ll get the job.
Despite their importance, only 12.7% of Kentucky’s registered voters cast a ballot in the last primary in 2024.
Local, state and federal leaders are responsible for making decisions that directly impact people’s daily lives. We know Kentuckians care about the direction their state is headed and are eager to learn more about their elected leaders.
So we created a free, interactive voter guide to help Kentucky voters get informed about the candidates they’ll see on their ballots in May.
In-person, excused absentee voting happens May 6 - 8 and May 11 - 13.
Early in-person, no excuse absentee voting will take place on May 14, 15, and 16.
You can visit the State Board of Elections website to learn where and when that takes place.
What's in it?
The 2026 Voter Guide from Kentucky Public Radio includes the names, party affiliation, district and other official election information for every candidate you’ll see on your ballot.
When you enter your address into the voter guide, it will display the candidates who you will see on your ballot, based on the district you’re in for state and national elections. Louisvillians will also see some local races such as the newly nonpartisan Mayor and Metro Council races that will appear on their ballot.
How did we decide what to include?
We committed to reporting out candidate information on all the statewide contested primary races. There are many races in which only one candidate is running. We chose not to invest our resources in those races because voters will not have the opportunity to decide between candidates. We plan to elucidate on all candidates in our voter guide for the general election.
Louisville is the only municipal election that we dedicated resources to cover. Thirteen Metro Council seats are up for grabs this year, and some districts have very competitive primaries.
We emailed every contested candidate asking them to share biographical information and tell us about their top political priorities. We reached out to each candidate at least twice, inviting their participation.
After the participation deadline passed, researcher and former journalist Marcus Green reviewed the candidate entries. For candidates who participated, he reviewed the information and fact-checked it. For candidates who did not participate, he researched their background and what they have said publicly about their priorities in office, including on their campaign websites, social media and taped interviews. In some cases, we couldn’t find verifiable information on the candidate, and that’s noted in the voter guide.
Editors reviewed more than 180 candidate entries over multiple rounds of edits. Then, we brought in our data reporter to build the tool itself.
How did we build it?
A lot of complicated processes go on underneath each election. In this primary, there are several different geographic boundaries that determine which candidates you can vote for: your U.S. House district, Kentucky Senate district, Kentucky House district, and, if you’re in Louisville, there’s also Metro Council districts.
Underlying this voter guide is some code that takes your address and compares it to six different maps in a matter of milliseconds. It finds which districts are applicable to you. The code then cross-references your districts with the information our reporters collected on each candidate. And then – voila! – it displays just the candidates and information you need to know about.
Finally, each candidate has a checkbox under their name. You can click on it to “select” the candidate you want to vote for. Then, when you get to the bottom of the page, you can get a simplified summary of your selections to take to the ballot box.
