Zach Dembo

Zach Dembo was elected to the U.S. House from Kentucky's 6th District, according to an AP race call timestamped 03:16 UTC on November 4, 2026. That timestamp equals 10:16 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on November 3.

An AP call is a news organization's projection of the winner. Official certification is a separate step, and this profile has not verified certification of the Kentucky 6th District result. The sources used here do not include vote totals or the margin.

Other Kentucky races appear on the federal election directory. More results are on the U.S. House page and the federal elections hub.

Zach Dembo was raised in Lexington and describes himself as a ninth-generation Kentuckian, according to his campaign biography. He went to college at Stanford University.

Through Teach For America, Dembo taught eighth-grade English in the Mississippi Delta. He also attended the University of Michigan Law School.

Dembo served as a commissioned officer in the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAG Corps) for more than four years of active duty. He and his wife, Lindsey, live in Lexington.

Two U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) releases, from 2018 and 2024, name Zach Dembo, listed as Zachary Dembo, as a prosecutor in civil rights cases against former Kentucky law enforcement officers. His campaign biography says he joined the DOJ as a civil rights prosecutor in 2017.

On June 18, 2018, the DOJ announced that William Dukes Jr., a former police sergeant in Providence, Kentucky, was found guilty of wrongful arrest without probable cause. The release connects the arrest to citizen complaints. Dukes was acquitted of a second civil rights charge and of obstruction.

Trial Attorney Zachary Dembo and Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth Hancock prosecuted the Dukes case. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated it.

On June 21, 2024, the DOJ announced a 110-month prison sentence for Tanner Abbott, a former Boyle County sheriff's deputy. That term equals nine years and two months. In March, a jury had convicted Abbott on five felonies and one misdemeanor.

The counts covered excessive force against four arrestees, an illegal search, false reports and conspiracy. Dembo co-prosecuted the case with Alec Ward, and the FBI investigated.

These outcomes are reported as of each release date. This profile has no information on appeals, and Dembo was one of two named prosecutors in each case.

Zach Dembo became a policy advisor to Andy Beshear in 2020 and eventually served as legislative director, according to his campaign biography. He later returned to prosecution as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Lexington.

A 2022 DOJ release names Dembo and Andrew Manns as the prosecutors in the case of Gregory Evans, a former captain at the Madison County Detention Center. Evans pleaded guilty to assaulting a detainee, and the FBI investigated.

This profile has no sentencing outcome for Evans.

Dembo's campaign says he resigned because of what he describes as politicization of the Justice Department. That is his own account. These sources contain no independent finding on it and establish no wrongdoing by any other person.

Zach Dembo's campaign proposes rules for artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers built around local input, children's safety and help for workers whose jobs AI replaces. The platform describes AI as having potential alongside risks. It does not propose a broad ban on AI or claim its rules would guarantee safety.

For data centers, Dembo calls for transparency about where facilities are sited and for local input in those decisions. He also seeks environmental accountability and protections that keep data centers' power costs from shifting onto families.

For AI products, the platform calls for safeguards that protect children using AI chatbots, and it names cybersecurity risks as a concern.

For workers, Dembo would require corporations to give advance notice before replacing workers with AI. Companies that profit from that replacement would pay into a retraining fund.

Zach Dembo's immigration platform combines a secure border and enforcement aimed at violent criminals with a path to citizenship for people who are working and contributing.

Dembo calls for changes at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including training for agents, body cameras and agents who work unmasked. He wants ICE to focus on violent criminals instead of making arrests at courthouses, schools and churches.

The campaign presents those points as its criticisms of how ICE operates.

Zach Dembo's trade platform calls for free and open trade and an end to the tariff trade war. His campaign connects tariffs to Kentucky's soybean, cattle, corn and bourbon sectors.

No source used here independently measures those tariff effects.

For family farms, Dembo proposes protecting crop insurance, expanding water resources and reforming the tax code.

Zach Dembo supports a $15 federal minimum wage and the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act), which his campaign links to collective bargaining and union rights. His labor platform also lists workplace safety standards, apprenticeships and unemployment benefits.

To increase housing supply, Dembo proposes cheaper construction materials, research and public-private partnerships. He would expand help for first-time homebuyers, naming teachers, nurses and first responders, and stop Wall Street purchases of homes.

Dembo says a home loan through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) helped him buy his own home.

Zach Dembo's health care platform would reverse Medicaid cuts, restore and expand Affordable Care Act tax credits and create a public option.

On costs, he calls for pharmaceutical prices that match those paid overseas, price transparency for medical procedures, caps on out-of-pocket costs and cuts to administrative waste.

Dembo supports a right to abortion in the first trimester and would codify Roe v. Wade. He also supports protecting in vitro fertilization.

His family agenda includes universal pre-kindergarten, affordable child care, an expanded child tax credit and incentives for employers to offer parental leave. Dembo's campaign notes that he is the son of two physicians.

Zach Dembo's education platform calls for funding public schools and job training, fair pay for teachers and investment in university research. He also backs apprenticeships and career paths that do not require college.

Zach Dembo proposes banning members of Congress from trading stocks and imposing a lifetime lobbying ban on former members. He also wants to end dark money in politics.

His Justice Department plan would move the DOJ outside the executive branch. The attorney general would serve a six-year term and could be removed only for cause. These sources do not show that the plan is constitutionally settled, and the cited sources do not establish enactment of these proposals.

If Dembo is seated, his bills and House votes would create his first federal legislative record, which none of these sources can show yet. Follow the U.S. House page for House coverage after the new Congress begins.