1995 Kentucky gubernatorial election

The 1995 Kentucky gubernatorial election was held on November 7, 1995, to elect the governor and lieutenant governor of Kentucky. Democratic lieutenant governor Paul E. Patton narrowly defeated Republican attorney Larry Forgy to win his first term in office. Patton succeeded Democratic incumbent Brereton C. Jones, who was term limited.

Primary elections were held on May 23. Patton finished first in a field of four Democratic candidates with 45 percent of the vote, avoiding a primary runoff which would have been held had no one won at least 40 percent of the vote. Forgy, who narrowly lost the Republican nomination for governor in 1991, easily defeated former state party chairman Bob Gable with 82 percent of the vote. Patton's running mate was Jefferson County commissioner Steve Henry. Forgy's running mate was commonwealth's attorney Tom Handy.

This was the first gubernatorial election following the approval of 1992 Kentucky Amendment 2, which made two changes to the electoral process. The first was that the governor and lieutenant governor were to be elected on a joint ticket. The second was that the term limit for governor was changed to two consecutive terms; this was an increase from the prior limit of one consecutive term, leaving Virginia as the only state to prohibit its governor from serving immediate successive terms. However, this was only effective beginning with the winner of the 1995 election, making incumbent governor Brereton Jones ineligible to seek an immediate second term.

In a sign of the party's growing strength in suburban and exurban counties, this was the first gubernatorial election in which the Republican candidate won the counties of Bracken, Calloway, Scott, Shelby, and Spencer.