By Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times

State Senator Robin Webb shocked Carter County, and eastern Kentucky, last Friday with the release of a statement from the Republican Party of Kentucky (RPK) announcing that she had left the Democratic Party to join the Republican supermajority in Frankfort. In the RPK release Webb said that her priorities and values hadn’t changed, but rather that the Democratic Party no longer aligned as closely with those values.

“While it’s cliché, it’s true: I didn’t leave the party – the party left me,” she said in the RPK release, adding that the Kentucky Democratic Party (KDP), “has increasingly alienated lifelong rural Democrats like myself by failing to support the issues that matter most to rural Kentuckians.”

Webb elaborated on her move on Saturday afternoon, in a telephone conversation, but couldn’t point to any one particular incident that led her to leave the party. Rather, she said, it was an incremental change.

When asked for an example of something Democratic leadership was doing that alienated her, she replied, “On what level? I mean, this is a progressive shift, in my opinion. I mean, for somebody who is a rural legislator, who has an A+ rating from the NRA, and hunts, fishes, farms, ranches, and the positions that I take historically, that I’ve always taken, and those kinds of things. You look at – and both parties have things I don’t agree with, don’t get me wrong – but (you look at) the national leadership, I mean, they had a gun control advocate there. I’m a constitutionalist. I’m not changed. I’m an attorney. I’m a senator. I swear two oaths, two oaths, to the constitution. I’m very constitutionally oriented, and my voting history reflects that. And I believe in legislative autonomy and separation of powers, and my form of government.”

While Webb discussed issues with both the state and national level party leadership, her main complaint was that the Democratic Party is out of synch with the needs of rural voters.

Vice-chair of the Carter County Democratic Party McClain Dyer agreed with Webb that the party needed to do a better job of both listening to the needs of rural voters, and communicating how their policies benefit rural voters. Despite that, and his appreciation for her years of service to the community, he said it was “disheartening to see one of the longest serving Democratic senators in eastern Kentucky switch to the Republicans.”

“It should send a large message to the Kentucky Democratic Party about how they’re forgetting about rural voters and rural issues,” Dyer said.

He also said he felt the statement from state leadership was needlessly confrontation and dismissive.

“It was very dismissive,” Dyer said. “I know Senator Webb, on a personal level, and I know that she will continue to do the work for our community. I just hope that she doesn’t fall victim to the games of the Kentucky GOP, and allow her vote to be whipped to further their agenda to make the ultra-rich in Kentucky even richer.”

The response in question, from KDP chair Colmon Eldridge, read, “Senator Webb has chosen to join a political party that is currently working around the clock to take health care away from over a million Kentuckians, wipe out our rural hospitals, take food off the table of Kentucky families, and take resources away from our public schools. If those are her priorities, then we agree: she isn’t a Democrat.”

Webb herself didn’t initially respond to the statement from Eldridge, but when pressed she said, “It was petulant and childish to me.” As for healthcare and support for rural hospitals, Webb said her record on that issue spoke for itself. 

She also sought to allay fears that her colleagues in the Republican party would have any more influence on her votes now than they did previously. She said she hasn’t, in fact, always been a Democrat. She said she was originally registered as a Republican – noting that this was the party of her father, while her mother was a Democrat – and changed her registration when working in the coal industry, because that party better aligned with her interests and concerns at that time. But, she said, the parties have changed their priorities since then, as they have several times since being established.

“There’s just issues in play that I felt, as the only rural legislator in the caucus for the past few years – and I love my colleagues individually – I can’t support the things that they support. The urban/rural divide is very real. It’s real on a national level, and it’s real and it’s here now. And I respect their views and I respect the demographic that they represent, and I’ll continue to work with them. But it’s been kind of lonely for me as a rural legislator for the last couple years. And this isn’t a decision that happened overnight, and it’s one I prayed about. I didn’t take it lightly, and I knew there’d be some people disappointed, but at some point you have to reflect the values of your district as well as being true to yourself. And I’m not changing. I’m really not changing. Everyone knows that I will still support working men and women. I will vote in the best interest of the Union. I will support public schools like I’ve always done, and the employees thereof, and worker safety, and a rational approach to the environment. Those are thing that are not – nothing’s going to really change about me as far as my votes.”

Among those who expressed disappointment was Nicholas Hazelett, Chair of the Johnson County Democrats, President of the Appalachian Regional Young Democrats, and State Central Executive Committee member for Congressional District 5.

Hazelett, voicing his disappointment on social media, said that Webb had assured him and other young Eastern Kentucky Democrats of her commitment to, “one final run for Senate District 18 (Boyd, Carter, Greenup, and Lewis) next year as a Democratic candidate.”

However, he characterized that promise – which he said she reiterated during Grayson’s Memory Days (Hazelett was a participant in the parade) as, “all smoke and mirrors.”

Webb, however, said she never made any such commitment, and only spoke to Hazelett briefly during Memory Days because she was ill with bronchitis.

“I saw Nick – who I love dearly, I appreciate Nick – at the Memory Days Parade. We didn’t talk. I waved at him. I said, ‘Oh! I didn’t know you were here.’ And I turned around and left. I mean, I didn’t talk to anybody about that at the Memory Days Parade. I had bronchitis. I was driving a truck. That’s why Patrick (Flannery, House District 96) was riding with me. He couldn’t get anybody to help him. I was sick. I said, ‘I’m not walking, jump in the back.’ We’re cousins. I didn’t feel good for many days. I went home and slept after the parade for 16 hours. So, I didn’t talk to anybody there. And, he might have said something about coming down the last time I talked to him. I don’t even know when that was. He mentioned something about coming down to Johnson County, and I might’ve said I might try, or something. I don’t know. But, I never said that.”

Hazelett, however, said he had spoken to Webb, “numerous times about coordinated efforts to re-focus our party post-2024 to rural Democratic values and efforts, but clearly that wasn’t enough to trust her ardent supporters, and that leads to our reality now.”

Hazelett also said he felt fears about losing her seat if the Republicans ran someone against her was a motivating factor. While Webb has long survived as a Democrat in a Republican district based on voters who valued her voice more than her party, Hazelett said that voters who pull a straight party ticket when they enter the voting booth could present a challenge to the Senator who ran unopposed in her last election. He said several names, including Flannery’s, had been floated as a challenger for her Senate seat. Webb, however, flatly dismissed such conjecture.

“There is no truth to that whatsoever,” she said. “I’m sure there were Republicans (who would like to see a challenger.) But it was indicated to me that they were not going to select a candidate to really attack me. That it could have been a few self-starters or somebody that wanted to, or was trying to get them to. There’s a couple of people in the district that were kind of trying to recruit somebody, and I get it. I get it, with the numbers. I get it, with the president’s approval rating in the district and the numbers, registration and all that. I get that. That’s politics. You want your ticket to be as full as possible from an analytical standpoint, to help your other people that are running and their party.”

She said when the party doesn’t run someone, they can get pressure from Washington for “a recruiting fail.”
“But,” she continued, “I mean… it had nothing to do with this upcoming election.”

Webb may be the most high profile local Democrat to leave the party, but she isn’t the only elected official to change her affiliation since the last election. PVA Leslie Kiser-Roseberry confirmed rumors that she had joined the Republican party last year. Dyer confirmed that county attorney Brian Bayes also switched his party affiliation, though Bayes had not replied to requests for comment before press time.

Kiser-Roseberry said that she changed her party in February 2024, “after much thought,” and “so nobody would say I was switching because of my job or because of an upcoming election.”

“My stand on every issue is still the same as it was when I was a Democrat,” she said. “I had always been a conservative Democrat, but the party has changed so much that I no longer recognize it. I feel like I didn’t change at all, they did.”

She said she stayed with the party for as long as she did out of tradition, but she didn’t feel at home in the party any longer, in part because of issues being debated on the national stage.

“I absolutely did not make this decision lightly, because on a local level, I love our Democrats. I just can’t get behind much of what the Democratic Party has become on a federal level. I disagree with them on many things, but honestly the straw that broke the camel’s back was I believe men cannot be women and should not be allowed to compete against women in women’s sports.”

Transgender athletes were also referenced by Webb in our conversation. But Dyer said he doesn’t believe debating these culture war issues benefits the party or the voters. Instead, he said, it distracts from the real boilerplate issues that would improve the lives of voters, and divides people into competing and antagonistic tribes before they can even discuss issues that would benefit everyone.

“To Senator Webb, as I did say, it’s disheartening to see her move,” Dyer said. “But I think that it’s more a reflection of how the national parties have led us to believe that social issues and cultural issues are more important than the issues facing everyday Kentuckians at their dinner table. People want to know how they are going to put food on the table. How are they going to keep a roof above their heads? And how are they going to pay their electric and water bills? And I hope that Senator Webb continues to focus on that as member of the GOP delegation.”

He said he also believes, despite what Webb and others have said, that the fear of losing elections because of straight party voters is on the mind of politicians, even if it’s only in the back of their mind and not their main motivating factor.  

“I think that is something that they’re worried about, but I think that’s something to be worried about,” he said. “Especially whenever there’s a major national elections, like a presidential election. That was our biggest issue in the last election. That’s why Democrats (including those who have won in the district in the past) did so poorly in Carter County. We had so many straight ticket votes as the Republican Party. That is why I believe some of our county’s (candidates in the last election) switched to being Republicans, because they were afraid of that. And I hate to say it, but they were right. But this upcoming election, next fall, is not an election in which the straight party voting can make a big difference. If you get out and campaign as a Democrat, and you campaign on issues that voters truly care about, and you make sure they know your name and they know to go to the polls to vote for you, they will. They’re going to vote for who they think is the best for the job, if you get out and tell them.”

He said Webb’s past success as a Democrat in a largely Republican district is evidence of that. But what the future holds still remains to be seen.

But while Dyer and his colleagues in the Carter County Democratic Party, along with other Appalachian Democrats, ponder what Webb’s changing alliances mean for them and their continued efforts to focus attention on rural issues that they say neither the GOP nor urban and western Kentucky Democrats care to focus on, local Republicans are less pensive and more celebratory.

“I am excited to welcome Senator Webb into the Carter County GOP,” party chair Justin Criswell said in a statement to the Times. “This is a reflection of the continuing shift of the Democratic Party from the citizens of Carter County and Eastern Kentucky.”

He also echoed Webb’s declaration that this wouldn’t change the way she voted or represented her district.

“Senator Webb will continue to be a champion for her constituency and in step with the super majority in the Kentucky State Senate,” he said.

Contact the writer at editor@cartercountytimes.com