Defying the polls, Republican businessman Matt Bevin was elected governor of Kentucky Tuesday night.
Bevin was winning 52 percent of the vote to Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway’s 44 percent, with independent Drew Curtis taking the rest. Bevin lost a GOP primary challenge to Sen. Mitch McConnell, now the majority leader, in 2014. Conway was the 2010 Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate but lost to Rand Paul.
The last Bluegrass Poll before the election showed Conway with a 5-point edge over Bevin, who only won the Republican primary for governor by 83 votes.
Bevin’s win comes the same day outgoing Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear predicted Democrats will run on Obamacare in 2016 and “pound the Republicans into dust.”
“You can tell there’s a pent-up demand and a craving for access to health care,” Beshear was quoted as saying. “People came out of the woodwork in droves wanting to find about this… This is a winner for our people, and because it’s a winner for our people, it’s going to be a winner politically.”
The centerpiece of Bevin’s campaign for Senate in 2014 was defunding Obamacare and as a gubernatorial candidate this year he pledged to roll back Beshear’s acceptance of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. Democrats argued throughout the campaign that his election would place thousands of Kentuckians’ health insurance in jeopardy.
“Bevin’s opposition to the state’s Medicaid expansion also appears to be hurting him with registered voters, a majority of whom favor maintaining the eligibility expansion that Gov. Steve Beshear implemented two years ago,” reported Kentucky.com’s Sam Youngman based on the Bluegrass Poll numbers.
Now Bevin becomes only the second Republican governor of Kentucky in four decades. His running mate Jenean Hampton will not only be the state’s first African-American lieutenant govenor but also its first black statewide elected official.
There were GOP successes in other down-ballot races as well, depleting the bench of Democrats available to challenge Paul for re-election next year.
State Auditor Adam Edelen, the Democrat who was considered most likely to run for Paul’s Senate seat, was defeated by Republican Rep. Mike Harmon. This makes it more likely that Paul will continue his presidential race for the time being rather than focus on re-election in Kentucky.
Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Democrat who unsuccessfully challenged McConnell in last year’s general election, was narrowly re-elected secretary of state.
This is the third major competitive election that Conway has lost in Kentucky. He failed to unseat then Congresswoman Ann Northrup, R-Ky., in 2002 and was beaten by Paul in the senatorial contest five years ago before falling short in the governor’s race.
In one bright spot for the Democrats, Andy Beshear, the son of the current govenor, was elected attorney general by a razor-thin margin over Republican Whitney Westerfield.
