2022 County Spotlight: Kiambu — From Kenyatta Country to Ruto Territory

Kiambu was Kenyatta’s home county. In 2022, it voted overwhelmingly for Ruto — not for Kenyatta’s preferred candidate, Raila Odinga.

If you wanted to understand just how much Kenyan politics changed between 2017 and 2022, you only needed to look at one county: Kiambu. This is Gatundu country. Kenyatta country. The place where the founding president Jomo Kenyatta built his political empire and where Uhuru Kenyatta grew up as the prince of Kenyan politics.

In 2017, Kiambu gave Uhuru Kenyatta a staggering 912,588 votes (92.63%) against Odinga’s 69,190 (7.02%). It was the biggest single-county margin in that election — a lead of over 843,000 votes from just one county.

Five years later, that same county turned its back on Kenyatta’s handshake partner. William Ruto got 606,429 votes (73.49%). The late Raila Odinga, despite having Kenyatta’s explicit backing through the famous 2018 Handshake, got only 210,580 votes (25.52%).

The Numbers Tell a Story of Betrayal

Let’s put this in perspective. In 2017, only 69,190 people in Kiambu voted for Odinga. In 2022, that number jumped to 210,580. So Odinga tripled his Kiambu votes. But Ruto still won by a massive margin of 395,849 votes.

What happened? The short answer is Rigathi Gachagua. When Ruto picked Gachagua as his running mate, he gave Mt. Kenya voters someone they trusted. Gachagua, from neighbouring Nyeri County, spoke the language of the mountain. He told voters that Odinga was an outsider and that Kenyatta had betrayed his own people by endorsing him.

It worked. Kiambu’s 1,275,168 registered voters delivered a turnout of 65.15% — lower than the 2017 turnout of about 83.4% when Kenyatta was on the ballot. But even with fewer people voting, Ruto’s margin was decisive.

Turnout: The Missing Voters

Here is something interesting that most analysts overlooked. In 2017, Kiambu delivered about 985,152 valid votes out of 1,181,076 registered voters — a turnout of approximately 83.4%. In 2022, only 825,191 valid votes were cast from 1,275,168 registered voters — a turnout of just 65.15%.

That is a drop of about 18 percentage points. Where did those voters go? Some of them were the Kenyatta loyalists who could not bring themselves to vote for either Ruto or Odinga. Without their man on the ballot, they simply stayed home.

Think of it this way: in 2013, when the Kenyatta name was fresh and exciting, IEBC data shows Kiambu had 863,199 registered voters with a 91% turnout. By 2022, voter registration had grown by nearly 48%, but turnout dropped by 26 percentage points from that 2013 high.

The Home Region Effect — and Its Limits

Kiambu is the perfect case study for what political scientists call the “local son” effect. When Uhuru Kenyatta was on the ballot in 2013 and 2017, Kiambu turned out in massive numbers and voted almost unanimously for its native son. The county delivered turnout above 83% and vote shares above 92%.

But in 2022, with Kenyatta not running and actively campaigning against the candidate his own county preferred, the local son effect evaporated. The county still voted heavily along a predictable pattern — it simply transferred its loyalty to the candidate that felt closest to home, which was Ruto via Gachagua.

Now here is what makes this story even more interesting for 2027. Rigathi Gachagua was impeached in October 2024. The man who delivered Mt. Kenya to Ruto is no longer in the picture. With both Kenyatta sidelined and Gachagua removed, Kiambu enters 2027 without a clear political anchor. Read more about the Mt. Kenya political shift in our Murang’a county spotlight.

The Third Candidates

Kiambu also had a notable showing for the minor candidates. George Wajackoyah got 4,377 votes and David Waihiga Mwaure got 3,805 votes. Combined, that is 8,182 protest votes — small in the grand scheme, but still more than the total votes Odinga got in some Rift Valley counties.

There were also 5,635 rejected ballots, the third highest in the country after Nairobi (12,869) and Kakamega (5,562). In a county where politics runs deep, even spoiled ballots tell a story.

What Kiambu Means for 2027

Kiambu is not just any county. With 1.28 million registered voters, it is Kenya’s second largest electorate after Nairobi. Any serious presidential candidate needs Kiambu. In 2013 and 2017, it belonged entirely to Kenyatta. In 2022, Ruto claimed it through Gachagua.

But Gachagua’s impeachment has left Kiambu — and all of Mt. Kenya — in play. The late Raila Odinga showed that even with Kenyatta’s endorsement, an outsider cannot easily win Mt. Kenya. But Ruto showed that with the right running mate, the mountain can be conquered.

The question for 2027 is simple: who will Mt. Kenya voters trust? And will they turn out at all? A Kiambu that delivers 65% turnout is very different from a Kiambu that delivers 91%. That swing of nearly 300,000 votes could decide the whole election. For more on how turnout patterns shape outcomes, see our Mombasa turnout analysis.

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