The 2016 Kentucky General Election: Steve Beshear, whose wife, Breonna, and son, Steve, will be the first black senator in the state since Reconstruction
Beshear’s win was seen as bad news for the Republicans. Kentucky Public Radio notes the winning parties of Kentucky’s last six gubernatorial elections have matched those of the following year’s presidential election winners.
A low percentage of voters cast ballots in 2015. In 2019, more than two in five Kentuckians voted — one of the highest rates for an off-year election in the state.
His family name is familiar to many Kentuckians. Steve Beshear was the governor from 2007 to 2015 and was involved in state politics since 1974.
Cameron is intent on making the contest a proxy for national political battles. The election results, which end Tuesday, will be a litmus test of how much President Biden’s popularity 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.
There is a historic nature to the bid by CAMERON. If elected, he would be Kentucky’s first Black governor and the first Black Republican governor in the country since Reconstruction.
For some Kentuckians and onlookers, the election is also a poignant reminder of Breonna Taylor, who was killed in a police raid in 2020, prompting protests in Louisville and across the country. As attorney general, CAMERON attracted national scrutiny for not asking prosecutors to charge officers for 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 then involved in the killing of David McAtee, a Black restaurant owner killed outside his business.
Beshear’s campaign released an emotional ad in which a young woman talked about her experience as a victim of rape by a family member at age 12. She pointed out that Kentucky’s abortion law contains no rape or incest exceptions, and anyone who believes they shouldn’t can never understand what it is like to stand in her shoes.
Beshear campaigned in part on increasing abortion access, including by running an emotional campaign ad featuring a young woman who was raped by her stepfather at the age of 12.
The woman in the ad says that to tell a 12-year old girl she has a baby with her stepbrother is not right.
The Supreme Court’s overturn of the right to abortion was welcomed by the Prime Minister. After the Beshear and his supporters ran some ads against him for not supporting rape exceptions, CAMERON wavered slightly on his stance.
I will sign those exceptions if the legislature works on this,” he said. I’m pro-life at the end of the day.
Does national politics trump all? Kentucky voters are about to discover out. The first gubernatorial race in Kentucky had an extra three days
Beshear has pointed to recent economic development and large-scale infrastructure projects — which were partially funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law Biden signed in 2021.
The ads show Trump supporters and Republicans saying they will vote for Beshear because he represents their interests.
“People should be able to vote for whoever they want, not just one team or another, but to actually look at the candidates and say ‘Who is going to improve my life’,” Beshear said.
Kentucky Republicans are particularly motivated in presidential elections. Democrats and Republicans tend to show up at the same rates in odd years.
“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. More than 260,000 Kentuckians have already taken advantage of this early voting, a small increase over last year’s midterm election.
The governor’s race this year is one of the most expensive in the state’s history. The amount of money spent by the two candidates and their supporters has more than doubled since the primary.
Source: Does national politics trump all? Kentucky voters are about to find out.
The Kentucky House of Representatives: Partisan Lines Are Evolving and Voting During the November 17th Electoral Collider
The results of the election will show how partisan lines are evolving and whether national political loyalties trump partisan lines in the future.
This coverage comes from Louisville Public Media, WKU Public Radio, and WEKU, all part of Kentucky Public Radio. Click here for more of their coverage in Kentucky.
In Virginia, 140 seats in the legislature were up for grabs. Democrats not only maintained control of the state Senate but also won enough seats to flip the House, giving them more power to push back on Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin and his agenda.
The entire 140-seat legislature was up for grabs. The elections received a lot of attention, with prominent Democrats such as President Biden and former President Barack Obama campaigning for their party.
In a handful of states with off-year elections, abortion access appeared to be a winning issue for the second general election in a row, even more than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Republicans, led by Youngkin, have been trying to recast their messaging on abortion, pushing a position they framed as a middle ground on the issue: a ban on the procedure at 15 weeks, with exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother.
Don Scott, the House Democrats’ minority leader, told NPR that the Democratic candidates have the message that they need to stop the extreme Republicans.
Scott is the favourite to be the Speaker of the House. He would be the first Black speaker in the Virginia House of Delegates if elected.
The Ohio Red State: Why Republicans have voted for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to Propose Abortion Protections
“I think it speaks to [abortion rights] as an issue, that this isn’t just a Republican or a Democratic issue,” said Jessica Taylor of the Cook Political Report. Ohio is a state that Trump won by 8 points twice and that’s why Republicans are voting for it.
The amendment’s passage is important because it represents voters in a red state who have passed abortion protections.
“Ohio is the first state that I really believe we can put in that red column and say, ‘We can go on offense, and we can win’,” Hall says. “And that is an inspiring example that 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. Ohio voters turned out in larger-than-expected numbers to reject that proposal.
There are signs that legislation is out of touch with Kentucky voters, who last year rejected an amendment that would have added language to the state constitution making it harder to challenge abortion restrictions.
Brandon Pressley, a Democrat and one of the state’s three public service commissioners, was defeated by him. Pressley supported expanding Medicaid in the state, but she didn’t get it done.
With the fight over abortion policy increasingly playing out in state legislatures and courts, abortion rights advocates have been paying closer attention to state Supreme Court races.
McCaffery won the Pennsylvania open seat on the Supreme Court after the American Civil Liberties Union invested in digital ads supporting him. Groups that are in favor of abortion rights want to shore up access to abortion in the future despite the fact that the governor is a democrat.
Democrat-Electoral Takeaway: Pennsylvania’s Favorable 2023 Presidential Candidate: Her Favorite Cause: Law Enforcement in the City of Victory
Democrats around the country are already focused on the 2024 presidential race and looking to Tuesday’s elections as a possible litmus test on the national mood.
“Tonight, Americans once again voted to protect their fundamental freedoms — and democracy won,” President Biden wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
The state’s Republican governor and GOP-led Congress opposed the amendment, and had tried unsuccessfully to change the state constitution to require a 60% threshold to pass constitutional amendments, as opposed to a simple majority.
Reeves’ popularity and fundraising prowess gave him a significant and expected advantage, but the race became more competitive than many had expected, as Mississippi Public Broadcasting reported.
Pressley was criticized as not engaging Black voters by his Democratic opponent in the upcoming election.
The majority leader on the Philadelphia City Council as well as a state representative, he was also the chair of the Delaware River Port Authority.
WHYY reports Parker’s victory was expected after she won her party’s primary in May, with a tough-on-crime agenda and the support of labor and the city’s Democratic establishment.
She has promised to hire 300 new police officers, aggressively target low-level crimes, and bring in the National Guard as part of her response to the opioid crisis. She has also floated “year-round” schooling and gradually reducing city wage taxes, among other proposals.
Parker, who has spoken of being born to a single teenage mother and raised by her grandparents on welfare and food subsidies, told her supporters she would use her personal, academic, and professional experience to “make Philadelphia the safest, the greenest big city in the nation with economic opportunity for all.”
Gabe Amo: The First Black Person in the Rhode Island Foundation and a Chance to Run for re-election in 2024
The 1st Congressional District in Rhode Island has the first Black person in it’s history, Gabe Amo.
The Rhode Island Foundation’s president, David Cicilline, stepped down in August to take the helm of the organization. Amo will be up for reelection again in 2024.
The 35-year-old son of Ghanaian and Liberian immigrants most recently served as the deputy director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, working as Biden’s principal liaison to mayors and local elected officials.
Among other issues, Amo has pledged to work to legalize abortion rights nationwide, fight for federal legislation to combat climate change, and promote stronger gun control legislation, the Associated Press reported.
“Undoubtedly, I’m humbled by the real momentous opportunity to serve as the first person of color,” Amo told the AP. I did not run to make history.