Mary Ann Tobin

In 1975, Tobin was elected to be a member of the Kentucky State House of Representatives from the 18th District which comprised Breckinridge and Meade counties. She served in the House from 1976 to 1984. In her first race, she defeated two other Democrats in the primaries (Lynn Thompson and Wade Glasscock) before she defeated Republican Henry Gibson in the general election (4,287 to 2,915 votes).^[8] In 1977, she defeated Keenan O'Connell in the primary election and faced no organized candidate in the general election.^[9] In 1979, she ran unopposed in both the primary and general elections.^[10][11] In 1981, she defeated F. Wayne Moore in the primaries but again faced no opposition in the general election.^[12][13] While in the House, she served as Chair of the Capital Construction Oversight Committee as well as worked to update the state's judicial system, automobile title laws, and driver's license plan.^[3][14]

In 1983, Tobin decided to campaign to be the Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts. In the Democratic Party primary, she beat out Jerry Lundergan, Ed W. Hancock, Tom Ray, Logan Turner, and Doris Faye with 143.836 votes. Lundergan was the second-place finisher with 77,419 votes.^[15]

In the general election, she defeated Republican Ronald B. Halleck with 503,954 votes to Halleck's 280,331 votes.^[16] She served in the position from 1984 until 1988.^[17]

As Auditor, she started a hotline to report fraud and established the Economy and Efficiency Audit Division as a way to try to stop waste in government.^[3]

Tobin sat out of politics for several years but in 1992 she decided to run for the district 5 seats in the Kentucky State Senate. She won the Democratic primary election which had seven candidates.^[18] She lost the general election to Republican Virgil Moore by 2,590 votes.^[19][3]

Tobin ran in the Democratic primary in Kentucky's 2020 election for the U.S. Senate. Tobin placed fourth behind Amy McGrath, Charles Booker, and Mike Broihier.^[20]

After leaving politics Tobin focused on her family's, and personal, businesses. She was the co-owner of Broadbent Wildlife Sanctuary in Meade County.^[21][22] She was a part owner of First State Bank located in Irvington,^{[citation needed]} a co-owner of Brandenburg Telephone company and owned a 3,300-acre farm.^[14]