Kentucky · U.S. Senate · November 3, 2026

What it would have taken for Charles Booker.

Before the election, as last updated September 26, 2026: Barr starts 10.1 points ahead on our starting line from 2026 polls. Booker needs 148,109 net votes, and the plan uses 88 percent of what history allows. The most net votes are in Jefferson County, Fayette County and Kenton County.

148,109

net votes between Booker and a win

Lost

Andy Barr won. Election held November 3, 2026.

10.1 pts

Barr lead, our starting line from 2026 polls

The result · November 3, 2026

Andy Barr won.

Charles Booker finished 2.0 points behind our starting line. The plan below stays up as the record of what it would have taken.

Andy Barr · Republican ✓55.0%

Charles Booker · Democratic42.9%

Christopher Campbell · other2.1%

Projected winner; unofficial results until the state certifies. Source · Second source

In short

One-page brief ›All Kentucky races ranked ›

Booker can win. The plan uses 88 percent of what history allows.

Odds today2%

Odds with the plan53%

Net votes to find148,109

WhereJefferson County, Fayette County, Kenton County

Underdog UpdateNovember 5, 2026. Result: Charles Booker lost. Unofficial result: Charles Booker 42.9%, Andy Barr 55.0%, a margin of 12.1 points. Our starting line had Barr +10.1; Booker fell short of that line by 2.0 points. This page stays up as the record of the plan and how it compared with the outcome.

The number

731,432 votes.

That is half of the 1,462,863 ballots we expect in this race, plus one. Where Booker stands today, and what is missing:

653,266 Charles Booker baseline

801,375 Andy Barr baseline

Starting line: Barr +10.1 among decided voters, from published 2026 polls, applied to each county's pattern in the 2022 through 2024 official returns. 2026 turnout modeled on 2022, the last midterm.

The odds

2% today. 53% with the plan.

We ran this race 20,000 times with realistic error on every assumption. Drag the slider to see the odds move as the campaign captures more of what history says is available.

Booker wins in

53%

of 20,000 simulated elections

With no plan

How much of what history allows the campaign achieves88%

The plan on this page sits at 88%. Median outcome at this setting: Booker by 4,912.

Each simulation draws the starting line with an error of 5 points of margin (the starting line comes from 2026 polls) and lets the plan over- or under-deliver by 30 percent. Seeded and reproducible; the method and data are at the bottom of the page.

Three moves

The gap closes three ways.

Change minds. Bring out voters who skip midterms. Win back the third-party vote. Every pool below is counted from official precinct returns and published polls.

Persuade

139K

net votes in the plan, from a pool of 157,925

Who. 157,925 voters in play: ticket splitters now leaning Barr, plus the 11 percent still undecided in the latest poll.

How. Live conversations on the call list that matters: voters who crossed party lines, plus the undecided. Booker needs to win 44 percent of the ones now leaning Barr.

Mobilize

15K

net votes in the plan, from a pool of 132,678

Who. At least 132,678 people who voted in 2024 but not in 2022, in precincts where Booker's side wins at least 55 percent.

How. Voter ID calls to people who voted in 2024 and skipped 2022, then a ballot chase until each one has voted.

Consolidate

1,233

net votes in the plan, from a pool of 3,995

Who. Voters who went third party in recent races, in the counties that lean Booker's way.

How. A direct appeal to voters who went third party last time. They have already shown they will leave the two-party default.

Together: 155,514 net votes against a gap of 148,109. That is a win.

Where it is won

12 counties carry 47% of it.

Ranked by the net votes each one gives the plan. The darker the county, the more of the upset lives there.

Fewer net votesMore net votes for the upset

01
Jefferson Countypersuade
Starting line Booker +31. 27,244 persuadable voters leaning Barr; 72,742 more ballots in 2024 than in 2022.
+28,314
02
Fayette Countypersuade
Starting line Booker +34. 10,985 persuadable voters leaning Barr; 39,172 more ballots in 2024 than in 2022.
+13,716
03
Kenton Countypersuade
Starting line Barr +4. 4,949 persuadable voters leaning Barr; 29,560 more ballots in 2024 than in 2022.
+5,024
04
Daviess Countypersuade
Starting line Barr +13. 3,546 persuadable voters leaning Barr; 14,152 more ballots in 2024 than in 2022.
+3,367
05
Warren Countypersuade
Starting line Barr +8. 3,276 persuadable voters leaning Barr; 26,080 more ballots in 2024 than in 2022.
+3,310
06
Madison Countypersuade
Starting line Barr +11. 3,311 persuadable voters leaning Barr; 15,317 more ballots in 2024 than in 2022.
+3,272
07
Boone Countypersuade
Starting line Barr +22. 4,276 persuadable voters leaning Barr; 23,759 more ballots in 2024 than in 2022.
+3,179
08
Bullitt Countypersuade
Starting line Barr +31. 2,913 persuadable voters leaning Barr; 18,366 more ballots in 2024 than in 2022.
+2,906
09
McCracken Countypersuade
Starting line Barr +19. 2,553 persuadable voters leaning Barr; 8,350 more ballots in 2024 than in 2022.
+2,886
10
Campbell Countypersuade
Starting line Barr +2. 2,964 persuadable voters leaning Barr; 18,616 more ballots in 2024 than in 2022.
+2,733
11
Oldham Countypersuade
Starting line Barr +9. 2,751 persuadable voters leaning Barr; 12,528 more ballots in 2024 than in 2022.
+2,638
12
Scott Countypersuade
Starting line Barr +7. 2,386 persuadable voters leaning Barr; 9,555 more ballots in 2024 than in 2022.
+2,406

What the numbers say that the polls do not

The hidden path.

Jefferson County holds the biggest share of the plan.

Jefferson County gives this plan more net votes than any other county: 28,314. It sits at Booker +31 on our starting line.

Fayette County is a turnout target.

In the precincts Booker's side carries in Fayette County, bringing back people who voted in 2024 and skipped the 2022 midterm nets 4,596 votes in this plan.

Spend it where it counts.

As of June 30, 2026, Barr had $2.31 million in cash on hand to Booker's $310K. That is exactly why the plan ranks every place by net votes and spends in that order instead of across the whole map.

The evidence

Where voters cross over.

Every dot is a precinct. If no one split a ticket, every dot would sit on the line. The orange ones are where Booker's side lost voters it won further up the ballot.

Precincts: 3,487
Slope: 1.066
R²: 0.963
Residual SD: 6.9 pts
Crossover precincts: 630

Weighted least squares, one point per precinct, weighted by ballots cast. Orange precincts sit more than one residual standard deviation below the line: Booker's side did worse there in this race than the top of the ticket predicts. Hover any dot for the precinct.

The plan, as published

The calendar it ran on.

Now to October 5
Find them
Voter ID calls across the persuasion list in these counties. Every conversation tags the voter: with Booker, with Barr, or undecided. The undecided become the persuasion universe; the supporters become the ballot chase list.
October 6 to 20
Persuade
Second conversations with every undecided and soft voter, built around the one issue they named on the first call. The goal is 139,228 net votes from people who have crossed party lines before. Every supporter it finds goes straight onto the ballot chase. Mail absentee voting requires an excuse; requests are due by 11:59 p.m. Eastern on October 20, and ballots must be received by 6 p.m. local time on November 3.
October 21 to 31
Bank the ballots
No-excuse early in-person voting runs October 29 through October 31. Mail absentee ballots, which require an excuse, must be received by 6 p.m. local time on November 3. Chase every supporter's mail ballot until it is returned, and move supporters to early voting while it is open.
November 1 to 2
Turn them out
The drop-off voters: people who voted in 2024 and skipped 2022. At least 132,678 of them live where Booker is favored. A postmark does not count.
November 3
Election day
Polls are open 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time and photo ID is required. Kentucky has no same-day registration; the registration deadline is October 5. The last calls go to identified supporters who have not voted, with their polling place in hand.

What has to be true

No wishful thinking.

Official results statewide: Trump carried the 2024 presidential race by 30.5 points; Beshear carried the 2023 governor's race by 5.1 points; Paul carried the 2022 U.S. Senate race by 23.6 points.

Booker wins 44 percent of the ticket splitters and undecided voters now leaning Barr.
In the precincts Booker's side carries in Jefferson County and Fayette County, 31 percent of the people who voted in 2024 but skipped 2022 come back and vote.
No national wave is required. The plan uses 88 percent of what recent Kentucky results show is possible.
The starting line comes from the published 2026 head-to-head polls between these two finalists, sponsored ones included; if the true gap is different, so is the plan.

The work

40,801 conversations.

That is how many live voter conversations this plan called for: about 778,637 dials to 259,546 households, before the last ballot was cast.

260K

households on the target list

779K

dials across three attempts

41K

live conversations: persuasion, voter ID, ballot chase

Call list: every ticket splitter and undecided voter in the targeted places (you cannot tell which way they lean before the call), every targeted drop-off voter, and the reachable third-party voters. About 69 households for every 100 voters on the list, three attempts each, and a 5.24 percent live answer rate per attempt, the per-program average across 1.2 million real 2026 dials in our published benchmarks.

HyperPhonebank

Running next cycle? We run lists like this.

Calls are the voter ID and ballot chase engine of this plan. They find the persuadable voters and the supporters, so every other dollar lands on the right door. The full call program for this list is an estimated $71,349 at our published rates: 259,546 households, three attempts each.

Professional live callers working exactly these precincts: persuasion on the ticket splitters, voter ID on the fence, ballot chase on every absentee request until it is returned. A live dashboard shows every conversation as it happens. Days to launch, not weeks.

Plan your next race How HyperPhonebank works ›Size your own program ›

The candidates

Who is on the ballot.

Underdog

Charles Booker (D)

Louisville West End native who represented the 43rd District in the Kentucky House (2019 to 2021) as the state's youngest Black lawmaker. He holds a B.S. and J.D. from the University of Louisville, founded the grassroots group Hood to the Holler in 2020, and led Gov. Andy Beshear's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives and Community Involvement.

Cash on hand $309,623 and $1,099,509 raised since January 1, 2025, per FEC reports through June 30, 2026.

Campaign site ›FEC filings ›Wikipedia ›

Favorite

Andy Barr (R)

U.S. representative for Kentucky's 6th District since 2013 and a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee. A Lexington native, he earned degrees from the University of Virginia and the University of Kentucky College of Law and served as deputy general counsel to Gov. Ernie Fletcher.

Cash on hand $2,305,546 and $9,981,055 raised since January 1, 2025, per FEC reports through June 30, 2026.

Campaign site ›FEC filings ›Wikipedia ›

Also on the ballot

Christopher Campbell (KP)

Marion County native and U.S. Army National Guard veteran (2013 to 2019) with a graduate degree from Eastern Kentucky University; he has spent much of his career in health care, working in nursing homes, hospitals and health departments.

Campaign site ›FEC filings ›

Declared write-in

Thomas Murphy (I)

Independent write-in candidate running a 'BRAVE 2026' campaign built on the message that parties are the problem.

Campaign site ›

Underdog Updates

What changed, and when.

We re-ran this race as new polls, fundraising reports and early vote counts arrived, and logged the result against the plan. Every change is listed here.

November 5, 2026
Result: Charles Booker lost
Unofficial result: Charles Booker 42.9%, Andy Barr 55.0%, a margin of 12.1 points. Our starting line had Barr +10.1; Booker fell short of that line by 2.0 points. This page stays up as the record of the plan and how it compared with the outcome.
September 26, 2026
Underdog plan published
Starting line: Barr +10.1. Charles Booker needs 148,213 net votes. Odds 2% today, 53% with the plan.

Questions

Who won Kentucky U.S. Senate in 2026?

Andy Barr won on November 3, 2026. Unofficial result: Charles Booker 42.9%, Andy Barr 55.0%, a margin of 12.1 points. Our starting line had Barr +10.1; Booker fell short of that line by 2.0 points.

Can Charles Booker win the U.S. Senate race in Kentucky in 2026?

Yes, on the math. Charles Booker needs 148,109 net votes, and recent Kentucky results show about 176,398 are reachable through persuasion, turnout and third-party voters. The plan closes the gap using 88 percent of that.

Where are the votes Charles Booker needs?

Ranked by net votes in the plan: Jefferson County, Fayette County, Kenton County, Daviess County, Warren County. Persuadable voters are counted from ticket splitting in 2022 through 2024 official returns; turnout targets are people who voted in 2024 and skipped 2022.

How many voters does Charles Booker need to persuade?

About 69,614 voters who lean Andy Barr today, each worth two votes of margin when they switch. That is 44 percent of the 157,925 persuadable voters leaning Andy Barr.

When does early voting start in Kentucky in 2026?

Kentucky offers no-excuse early in-person voting October 29 through October 31, 2026. The registration deadline is October 5. Mail absentee voting requires an excuse; requests are due by 11:59 p.m. Eastern on October 20 at GoVote.ky.gov, and ballots must be received by 6 p.m. local time on Election Day. Kentucky does not offer same-day registration.

Who made this analysis?

The Political Group, an independent campaign services firm, from official Kentucky State Board of Elections precinct returns, Census data, FEC filings and published polls. It is not affiliated with any candidate or party.

Method and sources

Precinct math from official Kentucky State Board of Elections returns for 2022 through 2024, projected onto current district lines. Polls, ratings and fundraising as published on the dates shown. This is independent analysis by The Political Group, as of September 26, 2026. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by any candidate or party, and it is written for every campaign that starts behind.

Statistics: a weighted least squares crossover regression on every precinct, and 20,000 seeded Monte Carlo simulations. The baseline error (5 points of margin) and plan efficacy spread (30 percent) are our stated assumptions. Download the precinct data (CSV, ready for JASP). Free to cite under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page.