Is Kentucky a bluegrass bellwether for 2020? Not so fast.

Politicians and political buffs love few things more than poring over recent election results. They study them the way fortune-tellers examine tea leaves. And for the same reason — they’re looking for signs indicating how the next presidential election will go.

With gubernatorial contests in only three states this year, the pickings were slim. Yet surprisingly, many students of politics overlooked what may be a new bellwether: Kentucky. The Bluegrass State picks its governor in the off-year immediately preceding a presidential election. And in the four previous cycles before 2019, the party that won the governor’s mansion there went on to win the White House twelve months later. Consider the evidence.