Who is Andy Beshear? Kentucky’s governor is on list of possible Democratic VP nominees

With the announcement Sunday from President Joe Biden that he will not accept the Democratic Party nomination to run for second term, speculation on potential vice presidential running mates continues to include Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.

Vice President Kamala Harris is widely expected to seek the nomination during the Democratic National Convention in August and was endorsed Sunday by Biden in his announcement.

Beshear is one of just several Democratic governors who have garnered attention as possible running mates for Harris, but just who is Andy Beshear? Here’s more on Kentucky’s governor:

Who is Andy Beshear?

Beshear is serving his second term as Kentucky’s governor. The 46-year-old is the son of former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear and was first elected in 2019, when he waged a successful campaign against incumbent Gov. Matt Bevin.

While Beshear’s win over Bevin was extremely narrow, the Democrat has proven popular and has generated much buzz among political pundits as a potential candidate for national office. In 2023, Beshear won a second, four-year term against then-Attorney General and Republican Daniel Cameron by a 5-point margin.

Born in Louisville, Beshear graduated from Lexington’s Henry Clay High School. His education includes an undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University and his Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law. He ran for office first in 2015, narrowing winning a tight race to become the state’s attorney general.

Beshear and his wife, Britainy, have two children and live in Kentucky’s capital, Frankfort.

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Beshear as governor of Kentucky

John Morgan of Morgan & Morgan leads the biggest personal injury law firm in the world. His company’s whole selling point is helping clients win their cases.

In Gov. Andy Beshear, for whom he and his firm have raised heaps of campaign funds, Morgan sees a winner.

“When the governors meet the President today… I pray the campaign listens carefully to Andy Beshear. He is the only democrat to win TWICE, in a very RED state,” Morgan posted to social media site X July 3.

Beyond the donor class, Beshear’s electoral record in Red America may attract party higher-ups and others in Washington. He won by razor-thin margins in 2015 to claim his place as the state’s attorney general, and then in 2019 against one of the least popular governors in America in Bevin.

But this past year, Beshear beat Cameron by five percentage points, an impressive margin in a state that handed former president and current GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump a 26-point win in 2020.

Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams, a keen observer of electoral results in the state, is no Beshear fan. Still, he spoke with admiration of the governor’s ability to build a bipartisan brand that can pick off voters from the other side.

“This is a guy who won the votes of one out of eight Republican voters last year,” Adams said. “I’m sure that got the attention of national Democrats, as you don’t see a lot of ticket-splitting nationally. Right now, people are so polarized they’re just going to vote how they’re going to vote, and here’s a guy that’s managed to pick off Republican voters in a conservative state.”

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Beshear on COVID, disasters and more

Beshear came into statewide politics completely fresh from a private law practice in 2015. In 2019, many observers said Bevin fared better than him in debates. But something changed over the next four years.During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the governor forced himself in front of cameras broadcasting all across the state almost every day. Delivering speeches and comforting constituents to a wide audience became an almost-daily ritual with his now-weekly “Team Kentucky” updates. That helped, according to Adams.

“He’s been an effective communicator, and he’s certainly gotten lots of experience with the Team Kentucky updates,” Adams said.

Throughout his 2023 re-election campaign, Beshear made no major gaffes.

There have been some crises and controversies — the state’s juvenile justice system is now subject to a federal inquiry, his record on open government has been questioned, a major donor has landed in hot water and the state unemployment insurance system was a boondoggle during the pandemic — but his message has not gotten muddled by leaks from the administration or those below him.

That’s a key strength identified by many who work with his closest allies in Frankfort.

“You watch all these other races unfold, and you see all these stories of backbiting, sniping and leaks. No one’s written that story about Beshear World because it’s a very cohesive group of folks and everybody does their jobs well. That extends to the official side,” Eric Hyers, Beshear’s top political consultant, told the Herald-Leader earlier this year.

What are Beshear’s politics?

There are reasons to believe that Beshear’s political brand and identity could pair well with Harris’ For one, cautious politicos may push for a white man to join the ticket alongside a minority woman.

“If you’re looking to balance a ticket that’s headed by the first Black and South Asian woman presidential nominee, then having a young white guy provides pretty good balance,” Al Cross, longtime Kentucky political journalist and observer, said. “A key to Biden’s election was how much better he did with white men than (Hillary) Clinton did, and that part of the electorate is still a weakness for Democrats.”

“We live in an era of identity politics, and his identity is a white guy.”

Beyond ethnicity and gender, Beshear’s uniquely “wholesome” branding might prove helpful.

Best known in-state for his response to a triad of crises — COVID-19, historic tornadoes in 2021 in the West and horrific flooding in 2022 in the East — Beshear was dubbed by the Associated Press as Kentucky’s “Consoler in Chief.”

At every turn in his gubernatorial tenure, Beshear has worked to present himself as an empathetic family man. To a large extent, it’s worked.

Breaking News

President Joe Biden withdrew Sunday from the 2024 presidential race. Read more on this developing story:

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→ Why some say Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear would make a great VP candidate

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What is Beshear’s track record in Kentucky?

A POLITICO story ran this month on the most popular governors in the country, a list that includes Beshear.

What binds many of them together? An inability to get much done when it comes to policy.

It may seem counterintuitive, but these governors’ position allows them to be choosy about the issues they champion, particularly when it comes to interfacing with supermajority state legislatures such as the GOP-led Senate and House in Kentucky.

“By picking and choosing their battles, they position themselves to voters as moderate, rational checks in the political center of statehouses otherwise veering to the extreme of either party,” the outlet explained. “That posturing often frustrates the lawmakers on the other side, who see these governors as unwilling to engage in the legislative trenches, allowing them to remain largely immune from policy risks.”

Abortion rights and direct teacher raises are prime examples for Beshear. The governor ran hard on those two issues, railing against the state’s near-total ban on abortion without exceptions for rape or incest and an 11% across-the-board raise for public school employees.

Neither of those proposals were seriously considered by the legislature in the immediate aftermath of Beshear’s win.

Cross said while the lack of change in Kentucky may be seen as a policy shortcoming, the low expectations for a Democrat facing four-fifths Republican majorities allow for onlookers to give the governor a pass.

“In the textbooks, you might say that’s not necessarily a good thing,” Cross said. “In practical politics, it probably is (a good thing). While he’s had failures in terms of getting anything passed, I don’t think anybody really expected him to get those things done. He’s avoided high-profile, possibly destructive battles with the legislature.