Incumbent Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear won a second term on Tuesday, fending off a spirited challenge from Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who would become the Bluegrass State’s first black governor.
With 87% of the vote in, Beshear leads Cameron by five percentage points, or more than 62,000 votes from more than 1.2 million actors.
The race has been closely watched to see if a popular Democratic governor can win despite running in a red state and with a deeply unpopular president sitting in the White House.
Beshear, the son of former Gov. Steve Beshear, who led Kentucky from 2007 to 2015, is one of three Democratic governors in the South or Southeast — a number that will be reduced to two when Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards leaves office early next year.
The 45-year-old won the governor’s mansion in 2019, when he ousted Republican incumbent Matt Bevin by just over 5,000 votes from more than 1.4 million cast.
Unlike in 2019, Andy Beshear finds himself facing a well-liked Republican challenger.AP
Bevin, who had alienated voters with incendiary rhetoric and heavy-handed executive actions, was pegged as one of the least popular governors in the country at the time.
“The previous Republican governor, frankly, was an idiot. I mean he’s really talking about his way out of office,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said of Bevin earlier this summer, according to Politico.
A year after electing Beshear, however, Kentuckians went to the polls and voted for former President Donald Trump over then-candidate Joe Biden by nearly 26 percentage points.
Daniel Cameron drew national attention for his handling of the murder of Breonna Taylor in 2020. AP
Throughout the campaign, Beshear largely avoided national political strife and focused on national issues.
Cameron hammered Beshear on his COVID-19 policy, accusing him of closing schools and ruining children’s education.
A rising star on the Republican side, Cameron has the state’s massive GOP machine behind him, along with the support of Trump himself, who urged his Social Truth followers on Tuesday to “VOTE Daniel Cameron for Governor.
“It’s a Vote you’ll be proud of. He will not let you down!!!” added the 77-year-old man.
However, Cameron is still spending ahead of time on advertising with a combination of Beshear’s campaign and the group Democrats Defending Blue Grass Values, aligned with the Democratic Governors Association.
The incumbent governor is a rare Democratic governor in the South. Getty Images
On the issue of abortion, Cameron sought to be cautious, supporting the addition of rape and incest exemptions to the state’s near-total ban on the procedure, which he has defended in court as AG.
Beshear focused largely on his economic record, crowing about Kentucky hitting the lowest unemployment rate in history last year.
Cameron, meanwhile, ripped Beshear for his more liberal moves as governor, such as vetoing a law that would have banned transgender women from playing on biologically female sports teams between sixth grade and college.
Daniel Cameron is generally considered the underdog in the Kentucky governor’s race. Getty Images
Beshear also vetoed a bill to ban so-called “gender-affirming care” for children.
The GOP-led state legislature overruled him in both instances.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
