Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, is projected to win reelection to a second term in office Tuesday, defeating Republican challenger Daniel Cameron, the state’s attorney general, according to the NBC News Decision Desk.
Beshear, 45, led the Trump-backed Cameron, 37, for most the campaign, but late polling showed the candidates in a dead heat.
Beshear is broadly popular with voters, with a 60% approval rating, despite governing as a Democrat in a socially conservative state where voters overwhelmingly backed former President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.
Besides Louisville and Lexington, the two biggest cities in Kentucky, every single county voted majority Republican. Kentucky still has a very long way to go.
Edit: well, at the time I posted this the results clearly showed only two counties that went blue. Now that I’ve checked all my negative down votes and all these comments, I see now that with more results in this is clearly not the case. Sorry folks.
I still stand by my statement, not enough blue counties!
Not true. Plenty of other counties voted for Beshear than Jefferson and Fayette. Check out the election map
Beshear won a collection of Appalachian counties and 2 of the 3 counties in the Cincinnati metro. The eastern counties were the difference between the Governor’s race and the rest of the races on the ballot. Here’s the election page from a local TV station with a really nice interface. Tap the individual counties for county level vote totals.
https://www.wlwt.com/article/ohio-election-results-november-2023-issue-one/45688445
KY voters have historically preferred a Democrat as governor, so much so that no Republican has ever won two terms and only a couple even made it across the finish line. I think the prevailing wisdom is a naive notion of balance of power, but most voters don’t seem to realize the state legislature can override executive veto with a simple majority.
It’s actually a lot bluer than expected, he even won in some very red western KY counties.