KY-5 · House
election-day forecast · ground-up model · as of 2026-10-02
The district, in brief
Kentucky's 5th district is based in the coalfields of eastern Kentucky; the map in force was first used in 2022 and was not redrawn for this cycle. The text gives no presidential result for the district.
The incumbent is Republican Hal Rogers, the dean of the House, who was re-elected unopposed in 2024. He won the Republican primary with 77.4% (81,554 votes) over political strategist Kevin Smith (11.7%), Benjamin Hurley, Brandon Monhollon and Jerry Lee Shelton; Somerset mayor Alan Keck declined to run. The Democratic nominee is Ned Pillersdorf, an attorney who ran for this district in 1992 and is the husband of former Kentucky Supreme Court justice Janet Stumbo; the text records no Democratic primary opponent. Two independents, Gerardo Serrano and archaeologist Mikel Wein, and a declared write-in, veteran and activist Billy Ray Wilson, are also listed. As of June 30, 2026 Rogers had raised $849,757 with $874,716 on hand and Pillersdorf $182,280 with $91,274 on hand.
Every rater listed calls the seat R: Decision Desk HQ (July 14, 2026), the Cook Political Report (February 6, 2025), Inside Elections (March 7, 2025) and Sabato's Crystal Ball (June 3, 2025). The text records no district polls.
A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.
The facts, each beside its sentence
The incumbent is Republican House dean Hal Rogers, who was re-elected unopposed in 2024.
The incumbent is Republican House dean Hal Rogers
Ned Pillersdorf, attorney, candidate for this district in 1992
Hal Rogers, incumbent U.S. representative
attorney, candidate for this district in 1992, and husband of former Kentucky Supreme Court justice Janet Stumbo
The incumbent is Republican House dean Hal Rogers
who was re-elected unopposed in 2024
candidate: Hal Rogers (incumbent) party: Republican Party (United States) votes: 81,554 percentage: 77.4
Decision Desk HQ R July 14, 2026 The Cook Political Report R February 6, 2025
Hal Rogers (R) $849,757 $946,293 $874,716
*Gerardo Serrano *Mikel Wein, archaeologist
Alan Keck, mayor of Somerset and candidate for governor in 2023
Kevin Smith (R) $110,370 $90,131 $20,238
Not in the source: The text gives no presidential result for the district in any year.; No Democratic primary result is given; Pillersdorf is simply listed as nominee.; No general-election ratings finer than 'R' are given (no Lean/Likely/Safe).; The text lists 'Endorsements' headings for both primaries but names no endorsers.; No district polls appear in the text, and the model's basis is prior only with no district polls.
Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as 4c6b2ef6af16; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.
Who holds the seat now
Harold Rogers (Republican), in this chamber since 1981, 23 terms. Committees: House Committee on Appropriations.
From the congress-legislators dataset (CC0), archived as ae8cb9477c48. For a Senate race this lists both of the state's senators; the one whose term ends in the election year holds the seat on the ballot. For a House district redrawn for 2026 it is the member elected under the old lines with this number, who may be running elsewhere; the dossier above names who is running here.
How it has voted for president
| Two-party margin | 2016 | 2020 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| President | R+61.9 | R+60.1 | R+64.7 |
A shift of 2.9 points toward the Republicans from 2016 to 2024. county returns placed on the current lines by 2020 block population; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.
Who are the voters?
| Group (adults 25+) | Share of adults | Turnout 2020 / midterm | Share of a midterm electorate | Est. Democratic share, 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| White, no degree | 81% | 63% / 47% | 76% | 12% |
| White, degree | 14% | 86% / 73% | 21% | 46% |
| Black | 1% | 54% / 35% | 1% | 88% |
| Hispanic | 1% | 16% / 6% | 0% | 48% |
| Asian | 0% | 52% / 14% | 0% | 54% |
| Other / multiracial | 2% | 65% / 49% | 2% | 47% |
Of about 520,479 adults 25 and over. In 2020 the district voted 19.9% Democratic (two-party) for president. With the same preferences and a 2022-style midterm turnout, it would vote 20.4% Democratic: the midterm electorate alone moves the margin 0.9 points toward Democrats. Group shares are estimated from how results vary across the state's census tracts (ecological inference, anchored to Pew's 2020 validated-voter figures) and calibrated to this district's actual 2020 vote; turnout is the Census survey's state rate by race and national rate by education, whose state samples carry margins of several points.
Not answered here: how each group will vote in 2026. These are 2020 preferences; this profile is description, not yet an input to the forecast.
The money
| Candidate | Raised | Cash on hand | PAC share | Self-funded | Outside $ for | Outside $ against |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rogers, Harold Dallas (REP) incumbent | $849,758 | $874,716 | 37% | 0% | $0 | $0 |
| Pillersdorf, Ned (DEM) challenger | $182,281 | $91,274 | 0% | 34% | $0 | $0 |
| Smith, Kevin (REP) challenger · not on our roster | $139,937 | $0 | 4% | 34% | $0 | $0 |
| Wein, Mikel (IND) challenger | $2,200 | $1,514 | 0% | 91% | $0 | $0 |
FEC bulk candidate summaries through June 30, 2026; no independent expenditures reported for or against any candidate, which usually means nobody outside the district thinks it is in play.
The district in numbers
| Measure | District | Nation | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's degree or higher, 25+ | 15.5% | 34.9% | -19.4 pts |
| White, non-Hispanic | 94.1% | 58.2% | +35.9 pts |
| Black, non-Hispanic | 1.4% | 12.0% | -10.6 pts |
| Hispanic or Latino | 1.5% | 19.0% | -17.5 pts |
| Asian, non-Hispanic | 0.4% | 5.8% | -5.4 pts |
| Foreign-born | 1.0% | 13.9% | -12.9 pts |
| Median age | 41.3 | 39.2 | 2.1 |
| Median household income | $44,884 | $84,362 | $-39,478 |
| Median home value | $110,100 | $379,737 | $-269,637 |
| Owner-occupied homes | 72.1% | 65.1% | +7.0 pts |
| Unemployment, July 2026 (BLS county data) | 6.4% | 4.4% | +2.0 pts |
| Change in unemployment, past 12 months | -0.3 pts | — | — |
| Change since the last election (24 months) | -0.6 pts | — | — |
| Unemployment (ACS) | 6.3% | 5.2% | +1.1 pts |
| Federal government workers | 2.6% | 2.6% | +0.0 pts |
| Work from home | 6.2% | 13.5% | -7.2 pts |
| Households on SNAP | 22.1% | 11.8% | +10.3 pts |
| Households with Social Security income | 43.4% | 31.2% | +12.2 pts |
| Households with public assistance income | 2.6% | 2.7% | -0.0 pts |
| Moved in from another state, past year | 1.7% | 2.3% | -0.6 pts |
| Gini index | 0.50 | 0.44 | 0.06 |
| Per-capita personal income (BEA), 2024 | $45,886 | $73,248 | $-27,362 |
| Per-capita income growth since 2019, nominal, 2024 | 37.0% | 32.0% | +5.0 pts |
| Government and other transfers, share of income, 2024 | 46.5% | 19.6% | +26.9 pts |
| Social Security, share of income, 2022 | 11.0% | 5.8% | +5.2 pts |
| Medicare, share of income, 2022 | 9.0% | 4.5% | +4.6 pts |
| Medicaid, share of income, 2022 | 16.0% | 4.0% | +12.0 pts |
| SNAP, share of income, 2022 | 1.4% | 0.6% | +0.7 pts |
| Earned Income Tax Credit, share of income, 2022 | 0.8% | 0.4% | +0.4 pts |
| Veterans' benefits, share of income, 2022 | 1.5% | 0.9% | +0.7 pts |
| Federal civilian jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 1.1% | 1.3% | -0.1 pts |
| Military jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 0.7% | 0.9% | -0.3 pts |
ACS 5-year 2023, the Census Bureau's own tabulation of this district (118th Congress lines). Unemployment is the BLS county series placed on the district by block population, not seasonally adjusted, so changes are same-month comparisons. Income, transfers and jobs are BEA county accounts placed the same way, compared with the average district. Every other figure is a named column of a named table in the Bureau's summary file, archived before it was read. This is what a reader knows about a district before looking at a poll; the model does not yet use it, and whether it should is a registered question.
Who is favoured, and by how much?
The 90% interval runs from -70.2 to -42.4 points, D-R. It is wide because this district has never been polled.
What is this built on?
A model trained on every contested House race 2012-2024 predicts this district's lean from its own record: presidential and House results on the current lines, incumbency, both candidates' prior offices, outside and party money before 1 October, demographics and public-assistance shares from the Census release before the election, local unemployment and income, and religious tradition. The national margin comes from presidential approval, the economy, the midterm penalty and the generic ballot corrected for its measured lean. Draws share national and state errors, so the seat total and this district come from the same simulation.
Not answered here: district polls, which are not yet folded in.
Why does the model say this?
Each figure is how far this district's predicted lean moves when that one feature is set to the typical value across 2026 districts, everything else held: 2024 presidential lean (R+63.2): 36.7 pts toward the Republican; 2024 House lean: 7.4 pts toward the Republican; 2020 presidential lean (R+64.6): 2.5 pts toward the Republican; college share (16.0%): 1.5 pts toward the Republican; social security share income (9.8%): 1.1 pts toward the Republican.
How sure is it, and of what?
Total sd 8.49 points, made of the seat's own volatility 91%, correlated polling error 9%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.
Not answered here: a nowcast. 'If ballots were cast today' needs something that observes today, and for a House district nothing does. Publishing the election-day figure under both labels would make one forecast look like two.
How was this number made?
Run 00a09d4b-7980-4ec5-ada0-077968a87242, house_district_prior/0.2.0, as of 2026-10-02. Promoted by a pre-registered gate: on 2016-2022 its Brier score was 0.036 against 0.049 for the previous method, and on a single 2024 run 0.023 against 0.032 (experiments/district_gate_result.md, with an independent review).