Did Kentucky get a new governor?
The Kentucky governor’s race remained too close to call late Tuesday with Democratic challenger Andy Beshear threatening to oust Republican Gov. Matt Bevin a day after President Donald Trump came to the state in a last-ditch effort to save the embattled incumbent.
In Virginia, Democrats used increasing suburban support to flip control of the state Senate and state House and gain outright control of state government.
Those outcomes could deal a considerable blow to Trump as both major parties looked to offyear elections in four states to gauge voter enthusiasm and party organization amid impeachment proceedings against the president. With ballots still being counted, there were fresh reasons for Republican concern about the party’s standing among suburban voters who helped Democrats flip control of the U.S. House and who will be critical in the general election next November.
Democratic gains in Virginia occurred in suburbs that already had trended in the party’s direction in recent years. In Kentucky, Beshear gained considerable ground on Bevin in suburban Kentucky 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 nonetheless 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.
Beshear declared victory Tuesday night, but Bevin had not yet conceded. Besides Kentucky, Trump also traveled to Mississippi as he tried to prove his sway among Republicans But even in Mississippi, GOP nominee Tate Reeves and Democrat Jim Hood have had a hotly contested campaign. Early returns showed Reeves, the lieutenant governor, with a comfortable lead over Hood, the attorney general.
Legislative seats are also on the ballot in New Jersey, a Democratic stronghold, but it’s Virginia that offers perhaps the best 2020 bellwether. Democrats had a big 2017 in the state, sweeping statewide offices by wide margins and gaining seats in the legislature largely on the strength of a strong suburban vote that previewed how Democrats would go on to flip the U.S. House a year later. Now, they have reached a trifecta: Control of the governor’s office and both legislative chambers. Some voters tied their decisions to the national atmosphere, particularly the president.
In Kentucky, 73-year-old Michael Jennings voted straight Democratic. A Vietnam veteran, retired state worker and former journalist, Jennings described the president as unfit for office and a threat to American democracy.
“If Kentucky can send a small flare up that we’re making the necessary turn, that’s a hopeful sign that would have reverberations far beyond our state,” he said.
Yet Richard Simmons, 63, a butcher from Glen Allen, Virginia, said he’s a staunch Trump supporter and he thinks the impeachment investigation is unfounded.