Kentucky has been a reliably democratic state for the past 100 years but a major political shift is taking place. Since Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 there have been 335, 744 new Republican registrations. There have been only 18,506 Democratic registrations in the same time. Since Matt Bevin was elected in 2015 there have been 121,010 new Republican registrations and negative 1001 Democratic registrations. Political analysts say the shift in registration is primarily due to the Democratic party embracing policies like abortion and same-sex marriage while the Republican platform embraces the right to life and traditional man/woman marriage. Since Kentuckians are conservative on social issues they've migrated to the party that better reflect two core principles integral to any healthy society.