No, Kentucky isn’t going blue. I can assure you of that.
But, still, if you said in 2019, after Democrat Andy Beshear was elected governor of Kentucky, that he would get reelected four years later, I would have said "not a chance." He ran against notoriously corrupt and incredibly unpopular Republican incumbent Matt Bevin. It was a victory by the slimmest of margins, under a unique set of circumstances that certainly would be corrected four years later.
And, on Tuesday night, it wasn’t.
In fairness, Beshear was largely expected to defeat Republican Daniel Cameron. Despite being a Democrat in a deep red state, Beshear has somehow managed to become one of the most popular governors in the nation. I can’t tell you why exactly, because he doesn’t reflect the values of Kentucky voters who have voted Republican consistently for decades and voted for Trump by roughly 26 points in 2020. But polls have been showing for a while now that Beshear would likely cruise to reelection. A month ago an Emerson College poll had Beshear up 16 points, and polls tightened significantly since then.
Just as they were in 2019, many are saying again that this is a warning sign for the GOP and Donald Trump in 2024. But, again, I have to say that this just isn’t the case. For example, the most popular governor in the country is Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican in Vermont. That’s right -- the same state that has repeatedly elected Bernie Sanders elected a Republican governor and gives him a 76% approval rating.
Vermont isn’t turning red.
In New Hampshire, which hasn’t voted Republican in a presidential election since 2000, there’s also a Republican governor, Chris Sununu, who is also quite popular in the state—despite the fact no one would call it a red state.
Similarly, no one actually believed that Massachusetts was turning into a red state when Republican Charlie Baker was elected 2014, or reelected in 2018. Even though he was the most popular governor in the country at the time, Massachusetts voted blue in 2016 and 2020—as expected.
So, contrary to what many in the media and the Democratic Party will say, this election wasn’t a referendum on Trump, or a warning sign that 2024 is going to be bad for the GOP. There is, however, an alarm bell that the GOP must take note of.
As The Hill reported Tuesday night, "Cameron worked along the campaign trail to tie Beshear to Biden and knock the incumbent governor on inflation, crime rates and social issues. Beshear leaned into abortion, painting Cameron as extreme for supporting Kentucky’s abortion ban, which notably includes no exceptions for rape or incest."
Beshear made abortion an issue of the campaign, and did so effectively. There’s a lesson there for the GOP to learn that I’ll get more into in another article, but make no mistake about it, the GOP does have to make some changes if they don’t want to lose races like this in the future.
That said, I’ll say again that if Democrats want to spend all sorts of money in Kentucky thinking they can flip it blue in 2024, I fully support their decision to allocate their precious resources in doing so.
