Dems flip Virginia; Ky governor race close
Democrats flipped both houses of the Virginia legislature for the first time in more than two decades Tuesday night, while the race for governor in deeply Republican Kentucky was too close to call despite a last-minute boost from President Donald Trump.
“I’m here to officially declare today, Nov. 5, 2019, that Virginia is officially blue,” Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam told a crowd of supporters in Richmond.
In Kentucky, Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear held a narrow lead and declared victory in the governor’s race over Republican incumbent Matt Bevin. On Wednesday, Bevin’s campaign asked for a recanvass of the vote.
A year before the presidential election, the results offered warning signs for both parties. Voters in suburban swaths of Kentucky and Virginia sided with Democrats, a trend that would complicate Trump’s path to reelection if it holds. And the Democrats who made gains on Tuesday did so by largely avoiding positions such as “Medicare for All” that have animated the party’s left flank in the Democratic presidential primary.
Democratic pickups in Virginia occurred in Washington, D.C., and Richmond suburbs that already had trended in the party’s direction in recent years. In Kentucky, Beshear gained considerable ground on Bevin in suburban Cincinnati counties that had helped propel the Republican to office four years ago.
Other statewide GOP candidates in Kentucky won by comfortable margins. But the dip at the top of the ticket still offered another example in the Trump era of suburban voters’ willingness to abandon established Republican loyalties – even with the president making a personal appeal on behalf of a GOP standard-bearer.
Trump’s 2020 campaign manager tried to find a positive frame for the results in a state Trump won by 30 percentage points in 2016.
“The president just about dragged Gov. Matt Bevin across the finish line, helping him run stronger than expected in what turned into a very close race at the end,” Brad Parscale said.
In other races:
❚ Mississippi: With Republican Gov. Phil Bryant term-limited, GOP nominee Tate Reeves defeated Democrat Jim Hood to extend the GOP’S 20-year hold on the state’s top office. But Reeves’ edge was only about 6 percentage points in a state Trump won by 28 percentage points three years ago.
❚ Tucson, Arizona: Voters in the heavily Democratic city voted overwhelmingly not to become an official “sanctuary city” with more restrictions on how and when police can enforce immigration laws. The election was held after the state passed a law that required local police to check the immigration status of people suspected of being in the country illegally.
❚ Flint, Michigan: Former city councilman and current third-term state Rep. Sheldon Neeley defeated Mayor Karen Weaver, who served one term and survived a recall effort in 2017.
❚ Columbus, Indiana: Democrats will hold a City Council majority in Vice President Mike Pence’s hometown for the first time since the 1980s if a candidate’s one-vote victory margin holds up.
❚ Loudoun County, Virginia: Democrat Juli Briskman, who lost her job after displaying her middle finger at President Donald Trump’s motorcade in 2017, won a seat on a county Board of Supervisors.