U.S. STATE POLLS A REBUKE FOR TRUMP

Democrats’ victories signal trouble for his re-election bid

PRESIDENT Donald Trump and his Republican allies suffered stinging defeats on Tuesday as Democrats were projected to win closely-watched elections in two states, results that signal troubling headwinds for his 2020 re-election campaign.

The Republican Governor Matt Bevin in deep-red Kentucky was ousted by his Democratic challenger Andy Beshear, who led by less than half a percentage point with 100 per cent of the vote counted, the official overseeing the election declared.

Doubling the hurt, Trump’s party also lost control of both chambers of the legislature in increasingly blue Virginia, local media, including The New York

Times, projected.

“We have called it for AttorneyGeneral Beshear to be the Kentucky governor-elect,” Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes said on CNN.

The US president tweeted that Bevin “picked up at least 15 points in last days, but perhaps not enough (Fake News will blame Trump!).”

Beshear, whose father was the last Democratic governor in the state, claimed victory, but Bevin did not throw in the towel.

“This is a close, close race. We are not conceding this race by any stretch,” the governor said.

Should Bevin’s loss be certified, it would be a shock defeat for a conservative in a southern tate that Trump won by 0 percentage points in

016.

In Virginia, emocrats will hold ll statewide offices nd rule the state asembly, a comprehenive consolidation of power not seen in the state since the 1990s. Democratic leadership swiftly portrayed the night as a massive boost for the party heading into next year’s monumental battle against the president.

“This historic victory should send a chill down the spines of Trump and every Republican,” Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez said. “Democrats are competing in every election and every state, running on our values, and channeling unprecedented energy into the voting booth — that’s how we won tonight, that’s how we’ll beat Trump” in 2020.

Tuesday’s polls, including a governor’s race in Mississippi that Republican candidate Tate Reeves was projected to win, were tests of enthusiasm ahead of 2020 for Trump. Trump hailed the Mississippi results, congratulating Reeves and claiming that his support was key.