A Conversation with Steve Beshear, Attorney General of the Kentucky Legislature, and a Newcomer to State Politics: The 2016 Kentucky General Assembly Election

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, won re-election after facing a challenge from the state’s Republican attorney general, Daniel Cameron, who opposes abortion rights and has defended Kentucky’s strict abortion laws in court.

Democrat Beshear beat a Republican incumbent in 2019. Kentuckians voted for President Trump by an overwhelming 26 points a year later. The Republicans were granted 14 additional seats in the state House of Representatives by voters.

Even before he first ran for office in 2015, his family name was familiar to many Kentuckians. Steve Beshear was the governor of Kentucky from 2007 to 2015, having been involved in state politics since 1974.

Cameron is intent on making the contest a proxy for national political battles. The election, which concludes Tuesday, will be a significant test of how much President Biden’s popularity — or lack thereof — will matter in statewide contests.

“It’s unbelievable, I dare say crazy, that you’d have a governor who would endorse the policies and the president who have created this mess that we’re in,” Cameron said, referring largely to inflation.

A relative newcomer to Kentucky politics, Cameron was a single term as the state’s attorney general. He has strong ties to a powerful Kentucky Republican – Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He first met McConnell when he was awarded a scholarship for an undergraduate degree, and would later serve as his legal counsel, which helped shepherd the confirmation process for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The election reminds some people of Breonna Taylor, a Kentuckian who died in a police raid in Louisville in 2020, and the protests that followed. During his time as attorney general, he drew criticism for not recommendation officers be charged for their role in Taylor’s death.

Beshear also came under fire from some activists for calling in the National Guard to Louisville in the midst of the racial-justice protests years ago. National Guard members were involved in the killing of a Black restaurant owner.

Does national politics trump all? The Kentuckians are about to find out. See what he’s saying about rape and incest

The Kentuckians turned down a proposal to change the state constitution to make it harder to challenge abortion restrictions. Abortion rights has been on the ballot in seven states – red and blue– since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer. Anti-abortion group lost each time.

“I believe that victims of rape and incest deserve options, that there has to be an exception,” Beshear said at a gubernatorial debate. “Some of these girls are as young as 9 years old and my opponent would make them carry their rapist’s baby.”

“This is to you, Daniel Cameron: to tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable,” the woman in the ad says.

Initially, Cameron fully supported the state’s total ban and cheered the Supreme Court’s overturning of the constitutional right to abortion. After the ads about rape and incest aired by Beshear and his supporters, Cameron made a U-turn on his stance.

I think that the legislature will work on this, and I will sign those exceptions,” he said. “But at the end of the day, I’m the pro-life candidate.”

Beshear pointed to Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law that partially funded recent economic development and large scale infrastructure projects.

While Beshear isn’t talking about his national political connections, Cameron is quick to tout his own endorsement from Trump. Trump didn’t visit Kentucky to campaign with Cameron, but he did release an endorsement video and joined Cameron for a “tele-rally” Monday evening.

“People should be able to vote for whoever they want, not stick to just one team or another, but to actually look at the candidates and decide who is going to make my life better,” Beshear said.

Kentucky Republicans are more focused on presidential elections. In odd-years, Democrats and Republicans tend to show up at roughly similar rates.

Source: Does national politics trump all? Kentucky voters are about to find out.

Kentucky Public Radio: Early Voting in a Regrettably Costing and Changing GOVERNATORIAL RELATIONS

“You have people that come out of the woodwork to vote for a president, and then the officers that are far more important to their daily lives and their quality of living — they don’t vote for that,” he said.

“People kind of look at you like they’ve never heard any of this before,” Adams said. “And then you take questions and the questions are about Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan.”

Adams has been an advocate for introducing early voting in Kentucky, and this will be the first gubernatorial race in the state where Kentuckians had the option to vote an extra three days. Over 260,000 Kentuckians have voted early, a small increase over last year’s mid-term election.

This year’s gubernatorial race has also been one of the most expensive in state history. Since the primary, the two candidates and their support committees have spent more than 60 million dollars, more than doubling the amount spent in the previous race.

The results of the current election will give a glimpse into how much partisan line has hardened and whether national political allegiances will trump partisan lines in the future.

Kentucky Public Radio is part of Louisville Public Media, WKU Public Radio, WKMS and WEKU. You can find more coverage from across Kentucky here.

The Red State Vote on Abortion Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union – An Example in Ohio, Michigan, and Kentucky

McCaffery won the seat on the Supreme Court in Pennsylvania after the American Civil Liberties Union began to play digital ads in support of him. A group of people in a state who support abortion rights want to shore up access for the future.

Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, said that voters in a red state are going to vote for abortion protections if the amendment passes.

“Ohio is the first state that I really think we can put in that red column that has said, ‘We can go on offense, and we can win,’” Hall says. The example shines a light on the path for other red states.

The vote in Ohio followed a special election in August, when Republican lawmakers put a question on the ballot – also called Issue 1 – that would have made it more difficult to amend the state constitution. The proposal was defeated in Ohio by larger than expected numbers.

Glenn Youngkin voted in favor of a proposal to ban most abortions after 15 weeks, as well as campaigning heavily with the Republicans in order to get a trifecta government in Virginia.

The Supreme Court decision last year on abortion restricted the states in the South, but Virginia isn’t one of them. 26 weeks and 6 days is when abortion is legal. The law seems poised to remain in place with incoming majorities in both houses.

Kentucky voters voted against a ballot initiative that was seen as unfriendly to abortion rights in another sign that the laws are out of step with public opinion.

The incumbent Republican Gov. of Mississippi won re-election. His Democratic opponent was a niece of Elvis who did not support abortion rights.